On My Travels

I’ve been all over since my last blog, including the Garbolino Spring Classic Festival at Whiteacres and the Total Fishing 2-dayer at The Glebe

Whiteacres – no fish left?
Whilst there was a fish kill at Whiteacres last year, rumours of the venue’s demise are unfounded. With winning weights of 150lb and 170lb on the two matches we fished at Twin Oaks this week, in reality it seems in better form than ever.
This new festival only had 18 entrants, but was the most enjoyable I’ve ever fished because of the friendliness and banter. The anglers were split into two 9 peg sections, and we fished on Trewaters Mon and Thursday, and Twin Oaks Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday was a day off. The weather was shockingly bad on the Monday, and slowly improved over the course of the week.

Day 1 saw me on the top lake at Trewaters – I can’t remember the peg number but it was half way along the first arm. I decided on a worm and micro pellet approach with two swims on 8 sections of Tourny Pro, angled at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock – so probably about 6 metres out from the bank. It was impossible to fish any longer than this because of the driving wind and rain. After an hour I was last in section, only having about 5 small stockies and tench for 2lb. Ian Andrews to my left was catching well, and Calvin Lawson in the sheltered far corner was also catching. But then the worm started to turn. Slowly but surely hour two was better, hour three better still, so that in the last hour I was latching into pound fish every put in. At the all out I tipped 37lb on the scales to nick second. Calvin emptied it with approx 50lb off the end. Harry Billing won the other lake from peg 53 with a bigger 50lb. So after Day 1 I was lying third.

On Day 2 I drew peg 10 on Twin oaks, a reasonable peg in that it is better than 2, 4, 6 and 8, but not as good as 12, 14, 16 and 18. Alan proceeded to empty it on Peg 16 on the bend taking approx 140lb of carp on the method tight over, and to be honest the match was over by the hour mark. For me, when plumbing up in my left hand margin before the start I noticed that a decent fish brushed my line. But at the all-in I kept my discipline and religiously fed my margin for three hours before trying it.
Did I hell! I dropped in to the margin straight on the whistle with meat and had 3 lumps in the net for 15lb before they drifted off.

It was then on to the method tight over whilst trying to coax my margin line back into life. I picked up a few fish across the day but never really got going, and I only managed one more fish from the margin. Dave Smith on 14 started to catch down the margin at the end and was flying, whilst Paul Taylor between us had some lumps on the pellet waggler. Did my gamble to plunder the margin early back-fire? By the time the scales got to me Dave Smith (peg 14) had weighed 51lb and Paul Taylor (Peg 12) had 53lb. My bag crept past them to 55lb, and another section second. Phew!

Day 3 (the Thursday) saw me draw peg 40 on the lower of the Trewaters lakes. I put my faith in worms again but this decision cost me dearly. Calvin Lawson to my left fished pellet all day for 40lb. My mate and fellow fishing4fun blogger (at least in theory) Mark Murdoch drew the hot peg 53 which Harry had been on. He then pumped Harry (literally I think) for information and even borrowed some of his paste. To be fair though, Mark then fished well to take another 50lb off the peg, fishing paste over pellet at 6m in front of him.

I could not catch at all for 3 hours. Hour 4 was better and then in hour 5 it caught fire with the worms working their magic. I was flying which put the wind up Calvin, but I knew he was too far gone. I weighed 22lb for fourth in section and serious points dropped. With 1 day to go I was lying 5th.

The 4th and final day saw me draw a good peg – end peg 35 on Twin Oaks. It can be iffy but Harry had done a ton off it 2 days before so there had to be fish there. I had a margin fishing 16 metres to my left but never had a fish off this. But I did catch chucking a method feeder over. The most important factor, beyond any doubt, was the need to chuck tight over. You had to crash it onto the base of the reeds on the far side. If you were a foot off – even if you bounced it off the far bank – you did not get bites. Small method feeder using soaked (overnight) micros and lassoed 6ml pellet of double hair rigged corn was the bait.

Every time I chucked short I reeled in, rebaited and chucked out again. Sometimes it took me three attempts to get it perfect, but accuracy was everything. Skip McCabe talked about Twin Oaks being a casting competition not a fishing match, and I know what he means. I returned 72lb but should have had more. Alan again won the section from unfancied peg 31. Well done to him. 50lb was third in section.

On the other lake Mark again fished well to take 170lb to win the section, also on the method with micros. Final festival placings were 1st Harry Billing (naturally) then Alan, then Mark, then Calvin who pipped me on weight to take 4th. Paul Taylor was 6th behind me. Overall, we had a cracking week. My mistake was the worm decision on Day 3 – it took too long to work. Mind you, we’d all still have been trailing Harry, whose knowledge and attention to detail is exemplary. One final point – at the start of the week in the bar I took a count of how many, of the seven of us, used a method mould. Two owned up to it. For the the rest of the evening we all took the mick out of them for wasting money on daft gizmos. But by the end of the week we were all on the mould. Why? Method mould = standard weight = accurate casting. Seemples.

The Glebe – best fishery ever
Two weeks later I travelled down to Leicestershire, and despite my enormous angling ability, the fish at The Glebe were not impressed. I must begin by saying what an amazing fishery The Glebe it – Roy Marlow lavishes care and attention on it, and it shows in the fishing. The weather was also glorious.

On Day 1 I drew on Foundation lake, Peg 3. This lake is right next to Mallory Park race track, and our visit coincided with the world motocross championships. The noise was deafening all day. In fact it was so loud, I didn’t even realise that Pebs had balled it in at the start of the match, and he was only two pegs away!
On the end peg, he went on to empty it with 180lb+ shallow, whilst Kev to my left had 66lb, I had 55lb, the guy to my right had 30lb, the next guy had 50lb etc etc. They were in the margins all day for me, but every time you dropped a rig in they calmly swam off. Jamie Jones top-scored on the lake with 200lb shallow from the other end of the lake, and he then went on to win the 2 day event.

Day 2 saw me draw where I didn’t fancy – Uglies Peg 55. This was a 35yd chuck up tight against the boards, with a second option down the margin to a bush on the right. Plumbing up I found it was really deep in the margin – a good 3.5 ft. This encouraged me, but with 55lb coming of the peg the day before, I wasn’t bouncing up and down with excitement. All the anglers in my 5 peg section were to my right where the bank curved round in front of me, so I could see them all. We could see fish rolling in front of them up against the island, and on the all-in they all chucked out a feeder, and all their rods went straight round! Literally, all four were into carp within 30 seconds of the match starting – I couldn’t believe it.

It took me about 15 minutes to get my first wrap-around, and a 6lb common was the reward. To cut a long story short, I went on to land 9 fish for 79lb, which got me third in the section. I had 7 fish over and 2 down the margin. At the weigh in, four of my fish pulled the scales round to 41lb. They might be ugly but they are heavy.

My learning from this match concerned casting. One of the rules at the Glebe is a minimum 20 inch hooklength. This makes chucking tight a nightmare as when you land it the hook flicks over the board and into the bushes. I snagged up about 3 or 4 times, but more annoying was the two or three occasions I sat there thinking I’d landed the perfect cast, just waiting for the tip to fly round. When nothing happened, I’d reel in after 5 minutes to discover I was snagged in the boards. The secret seemed to be delivering a lower trajectory cast and crashing your feeder into the boards in an unsightly mess. Casting tight was mandatory – “if you aren’t tight they don’t bite”.
I did consider a possible solution to this conundrum, which was to ‘tie’ my hook hooklength back onto the mainline with pva tape ie. lay the hooklength back against the mainline, so that the hook ends up 20 inches back up the mainline away from the feeder. But I didn’t have any pva, and as a solution it was probably no less fiddly than chucking and re-chucking till I got it right. Obviously none of this would have been necessary if the method or pellet cone were allowed, but ‘them’s the rules’.
Roy also insists on ‘reasonable’ elastics rather than harsh elastics. However, the 17lb mirror I hooked in the margin seemed to regard my black hydro as ‘pitiful’ rather than ‘reasonable’. After about 15 minutes I netted him, but only because I think he felt sorry for me.
Overall, it was a great event. My travelling companion Steve May came 4th overall with two section wins, but a combined weight of ‘only’ 180lb. What a place. Over the same weekend my brother got 2nd at Partridge with 60lb caught shallow, so I think I’ll have a dabble there on Saturday.