By Colin Mercer | No Comments
Last updated: Thursday, May 1, 2008

Two years ago I finished 40th (out of 180 anglers) in this Whiteacres festival. Last year I finished 39th. So this year I expected to finish 38th. Unfortunately, the fishing gods made a typo in their plans, and I finished……… 83rd!
It was a week of real highs and lows. I got some stuff right, and some stuff wrong, and had the usual mixed fortunes that characterise match-fishing.

Monday, Twin Oaks Peg 23
This is on the ‘less-good’ side of Twin Oaks, and is in the same section as Trelawney. The end pegs in this section (17 and 35) are regarded as the best, but after that there is no real difference that I’m aware of, so I didn’t have any particular views or knowledge about this peg. About 30 metres wide, Andy Lloyd had told me the previous day only to fish over, or down the near margin, and not to even bother setting up a long pole swim. I should have listened to him, as I probably wasted 20 minutes in total trying to get a bite at 12 metres without any success. I started on the meat feeder, containing mainly hemp plugged with grated meet – two small cubes hair rigged on the hook. I started well with a couple of early fish, so that after 20 mins I had 3 carp for about 5lb – this was level pegging with those around me.

The next two hours taught me a lot about Cornish carp fishing. I cannot emphasise this point strongly enough – if you put your feeder tight against the far bank reeds you got a fish, if you were 2ft off, you didn’t. It was as simple as that. Consequently, owing to the wind and my inability to cast, 3 out of every 5 of my casts were good, and 2 from 5 had to be immediately reeled in and cast again. If you got lazy and thought your cast was ’good enough’ you were wasting your time. Cast your feeder bang on the money, and the tip would wrap straight round. If it didn’t, your hook was caught up in the reeds.
From the start I had fed margin lines both sides, a make-or-break tactic on Twin Oaks. With an hour and a half to go the angler on my left started to catch in the margin. At this point he was behind me but with a few fish close he was catching me up. I had a quick look down the margin – no sign, so I chucked long again. And he continued catching to my left, so 15 mins later I was forced to look down the margin again.

Jackie Stewart in his autobiography says that there is a moment in every race when you do something that determines whether you win it or lose it. I dropped in on my right hand margin, and foul-hooked a lump. It came off, but gave me the confidence to persevere – looking back, that was the Jackie Stewart moment. In the last hour I had 5 fish for about 30lb, to give me a total of 83lb for second in section, beaten by 130lb from end peg 35. Weights behind me were 70lb, 60lb etc. So, a good start.

Tuesday, Grim’ere Peg 42
Of all the pegs on all the lakes in all the land……Peg 42 is where I didn’t want to draw. It is on the right hand side of the lake, and is pegged so tightly there is only about 10 foot either side to 41 and 43 (no exaggeration). It is a shocker. A bright sunny day, with 4 hours gone I hadn’t had a bite, and I was beginning to think that I was to suffer the same fate as those who had blanked the previous day. I had tried long pole (16m), short pole, and had spent most of my time sat on the bomb and pellet, without a rap. Mark Murdoch to my left had one fish, and the bloke to my right had 4, all on the tip. I then noticed that an angler further up was catching a few on maggot, so I killed a few reds, put on a small cage feeder with two maggots on the hook, and chucked out. After 15 mins the tip went round, and I landed a 3 pounder. Chucked out again, another fish same size. Then with 10 minutes to go, it wanged round and a proper lump was on. It took me about 10 minutes to put the net under a better fish. The scales when they arrived showed 13lb, which meant I beat two and rescued a few points at least. Although a poor showing overall, I was pleased I’d kept my patience and stuck it out for proper fish – not something that comes naturally to a scratcher. The Jackie Stewart moment? This was when I came off the tip after an hour and tried to catch at 16 metres, where the presentation just wasn’t right. In hindsight, I should have sat on the tip all day, and concentrated on doing one thing properly, rather than faffing around trying lots of different things.

Wednesday, Porth Peg 89
In my last three festivals I’ve had two section wins and a second off Porth, so I felt confident. More so when I pulled out end peg 89, even though it hadn’t fished for Tommy the day before. The whole venue was fishing a bit iffy, so I hoped that would suit me. Everyone was saying that all the fish were on the pole line, so I started by cupping in 4 balls in a diamond at 12 metres, sprinkling a pot full of casters in the middle. (Groundbait was one bag Crazy Bait Gold, one bag Sensas Roach and Silver Fish – this covered both pole and tip lines).
I had then decided I would quickly put out 10 feederfuls at 21 turns (~21 metres). Normally when doing this I don’t put a hooklength on until I have put the initial feed out there, as the constant casting and retrieving spins it up. But I had forgotten about this and already put one on. I chucked the feeder out, waited 30 seconds, and saw a slight tap on the tip just as I was about to retrieve it. Second cast saw the tip go round straightaway – first fish a small roach. (Note, I always pack my feeder very lightly on Porth – I read an article by Will Raison explaining this a few years ago. If the feed doesn’t drop onto your head a few times every match as you cast, it’s packed too tight – a vertical column of feed is what they want). I stayed on the feeder for about an hour putting about 1.5lb in the net but it had started to slow down so I came in on the pole. First put-in I had a small skimmer, which nearly cost me the match. Why? Because it encouraged me to stay on the pole for too long – I didn’t have another bite for 20 mins so switched back to the feeder, fortunately before too much damage was done.
I continued to catch steadily but not frequently on the tip, drip-feeding caster over the pole line every 5 mins. After about 3 hours I went back in the pole line and started to catch. I had 3 rigs set up – 1.5g deep, 0.8g deep, and a 4 x 10 shallow rig set at 4ft. The lighter deep rig was best, but just as I started to get into a rhythm a pike struck and spangled my rig. This has happened to me before on Porth and previously it really hacked me off, but I felt ok this time, mainly because I knew I had loads of replacement rigs. (By then end of the match I had lost 3 rigs to pike). Still the fish came and went, so I decided to just feed groundbait (2 balls every 20 mins) and stop loose feeding caster. This helped steady the fish and was a definite improvement. Then Jackie Stewart rand me on the mobile and told me to take a section off and fish at 11 metres. I didn’t even bother re-plumbing, brought the rig in a metre or so, and caught skimmers straight away. With half an hour to go my bait was getting intercepted on the way down, so I switched to the shallow rig, but it was too light. So I cut down my 0.8g deep rig (no turning back now!) and started to sack at 3 ft deep – only roach but one a bung. When the whistle went I was having great fun. Clint came round with the scales, and I won the section with 9lb 11oz, also enough to win the lake, with 9lb 6oz pushing me close. My first festival lake win, and I was delighted.

Thursday, Bolingey Peg 10
Although I enjoyed this day, catching 64lb of carp, if I’m really honest I got it wrong. Peg 10 at Bolingey is not the best, but I was beaten both sides, Jon Davies catching 80lb to my right on peg 9, and the angler on 11 fishing a great match to land 110lb. What did I get wrong? My main attack was meat feeder over to the island and although I had a few fish on it, in hindsight I think meat was wrong, and pellet would have been better. Stewart Lister gave me a good briefing before hand and stressed the importance of the 5/6m line. I really tried to make this work and had a few off it but couldn’t really kick-start it into life. I fed corn and pellet here.

I also had a few on my left hand margin, and learnt a valuable lesson. Here is a question for you. There is 13 minutes to go in the match. You’ve just landed an 8lb lump from your margin swim. As you are rebaiting, you notice your Drennan Carp Feeder hook has been bent slightly out of shape. Do you a) crimp it back into shape with your teeth, or b) replace the hook? I opted for ‘a’, dropped back in and was immediately into another lump, on red hydro. Two minutes into the battle, the hook inexplicably pulled out. Inspecting it, it looked fine. But I’d been a fool once I was determined not to be a fool twice, so I quickly replaced the hook. In the 6 or 7 minutes remaining I managed two more lumps, safe in the knowledge that I had a good hook on. At the scales I faired badly in the section, beating only 2 other anglers. The next angler above me beat me by only 4oz. That mistake with the hook had cost me a point. Next time I will try to keep my discipline and do the right thing!

Friday, Pollawyn Peg 52
This peg is up one of the dreaded arms – I drew it last time as well and struggled then so I wasn’t too confident. The Jackie Stewart moment happened at the draw, before I’d even got to my peg. Andy Lloyd told me you needed to fish 17 metres over to the point of the island. My brother Pete offered me his spare Tourny butt section as I only had 16 metres, but because my back is not the best, I refused the offer, electing to fish a flick rig instead (ie 16m of pole plus 2m of line). When I got to my peg, I realised a flick rig would not work, due to overhanging bushes. Rather than try and find a way to attack it with a bomb or waggler, I chose to fish at 16 metres instead and plumbed up swims there, sending my Festival Formula 1 car spinning off the track and into a wall of tyres. I fished for carp for two hours without a sniff (first and last hours), and spent three hours down the track for skimmers, weighing 15lb for second to last in section. The reality? A below-average peg made into a non-starter thanks to a bad tactical decision. If I drew it again tomorrow I would fish 18 metres and attempt to get ‘round the back’ of the island where I’m sure a few carp lurk. Skip McCabe was further round that bend and won the section easily with a netful and if I’d done it right I might have nicked a few.

Looking Back
I finished 83rd, not a great showing, but I have done worse in the past. I made some mistakes which compounded some lacklustre draws, although I had a few reasonable pegs as well. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, met up with some great friends, had a few fish and a load of laughs. It is really a different world down there – festivals change you, as an angler you cram so much learning into a (too) short week. Can’t wait for next year, but I need some coaching from Jackie Stewart before then…