A Druggies Tale!

I didn’t plan on fishing Tuesday but my neighbour volunteered to pick the little one up from school and look after her until I got home. So I was off to get my fix, I was really suffering ‘Cold Turkey’ after having an early bath on Sunday and was keen as mustard. Jack had returned and we had some more crispy grass. This is getting to sound like a druggie’s tale, back to the fishing! White Acres is now open and it was nice to see some of the visiting ‘old faces’ turn up for the match, our match attendances now start to increase until October, which is great.

I followed Bob Rand in the draw queue he pulled out flyer peg 25, I found peg 21. Now the problem with this peg is that pegs 25, 27 and 36 are all constantly in your sight and they have been fishing there socks off! 21 has been a bit on the slow side, but it is in a good area and no doubt will turn on again soon. Oh man, I must have run over a flock of robins the way my luck is running at the moment.

Fish Magnet

Harry had drawn on peg 42 and initially didn’t know what to make of his peg. There had been some weights there on Sunday’s winter league so he was not that unhappy. I wandered back to the van before the match and stopped for a chat with Harry and Duds. He told me that as he was plumbing at 12 metres he was getting liners with carp brushing against his line! The man is a fish magnet!I keep hoping that it will rub off on me, but at the moment it’s like the polarity is wrong.

The match started and I dropped in on the six metre line and I actually had a carp on the drop! That fish proved to be false hope as I really struggled all match. I couldn’t find any fish and could only take the odd one of any line that I chose. I even fished a corn line throughout the day, but only had a couple on the yellow pellet.

Bob on 25 had a great start with plenty of fish before he slowed eventually finishing with 70 odd pounds. Charlie Shaw on 27 was the same ending up with 65lb. Alan Hurley on 36 initially struggled but caught late! He managed 75lb. What a strange match this was it really threw the form book away. I finished the match with neck ache and 30lb. Still mustn’t grumble, it was nice to be out as the sun shone for most of the day.

No prizes for guessing that Harry caught 110lb to record yet another victory, most were caught on the long pole and 6mm pellet, he had some from down the edge late on. That other well known magnet Mark Lazell had drawn peg 31 on the end of the island and came second with a 100lb of pellet caught carp. Overall the lake didn’t fish as well as it had been fishing recently. Or did it? I am not sure whether it is just our expectations of everybody getting big weights. It is still winter and we are getting some very cold nights, yet the lake is throwing up 100lb bags from different areas.

Family visits

My planned Easter festivities on the bank had to be curtailed somewhat as my son Alex and his lovely wife Emily were coming down to stay with us. I was under strict orders to stay at home over the long weekend break. I have a load of fishing in the pipeline that I am about to overdose on so agreed. I did talk Alex into bringing some of his tackle with him as I had found him a partner in the pairs match on Saturday. Alex and I needed a bit of father and son bonding!

We woke on Saturday morning to snow flurries and a biting Northerley wind; it really is the return to winter. We picked up Harry and Duds and made our way to Mawgan Porth for the Kernow Match Group pairs match. On the way we fill Alex in on the methods and all our expectations are raised! At the car park Alex is introduced to Alan Hodgson his partner for the day. The match organiser John Forster explains that the match is to be a random draw and will be decided on overall weight of the anglers.

Mark Charnell known to everybody as Sharkey jokes that he wants to be my partner as he reckons we will win the overall weight of the anglers! He is not wrong. I have a dip and out the bag comes peg 38, it is not one of the pegs that has been on top form recently but I am not that unhappy with it. In fact I drew the peg back in November in the winter league so knew a bit about it. I knew the peg was about 3’6’’ on the top two and it was the same going out to 5 sections which for Mawgan Porth is a long pole line!

I set up various rigs in the region of 4 x 12 and 4 x 14 I had duplicates of all my rigs in case one got trashed, you do not want to be messing around at this place as it can be a fishing race. The only real variation on my rigs was that I did set one up to 0.12 line and an 18’s hook in case it was hard with the cold weather. Shotting wise it was very simple I had a double bulk rig, the main bulk set at 14’’ from the hook and two number 8 stotz about6’’ from the hook. I had two tins corn opened for hook bait and feed and a few micros. I was ready with about 30 minutes to spare.

A section too short

Harry, my partner had drawn peg 28 funnily enough one of the ones that we talked about on the way to the match, we both fancied that peg! It was a peg with some recent good form and was hopefully going to be the basis for good points. I felt under a little pressure to try and get a result.

The match started and I fed a few grains of corn just short of my float, I was fishing directly in front of me on my top two kit. You have to be on the ball from the off here because if you get behind it is very difficult to catch up. There is no going down the edge in the last hour looking for some lumps as there are none. The fish average about a pound and today we were looking for 100lb each. I had no bites or indications in the first 10 minutes but I could see Harry was catching. To my right Skip McCabe was catching on the ‘Mawgan method’ a very short pole, I couldn’t understand how the fish were that close in as the water looked very clear to me, I did notice Skip slowing down after a good start.

I added another section and fed some more corn just inside my float. After a few minutes I had my first indication and then my first carp. I had a steady two hours and was putting carp into my net on a regular basis. Going into the third hour my peg just died it was like someone had turned the switch off. The only way I could find fish was going ‘long’ at 5 sections! But it was just the odd fish until the last 30 minutes when everybody started catch. The whistle went and so did the wind! How many times does that happen?

The verdict

The weighing started on the opposite bank and by the time they got around to Harry most of the pairs had weighed. Leading at that stage was Charlie Hibbs and Eddie Brown who had a combined weight of 153lb 01oz following them was Rob Fuller and Trev Vernalls who recorded 138lb 09oz. Harry pulled out his net and put 121lb 05oz onto the scales. I weighed a few anglers later with 78lb 01oz to give us 199lb 06oz total and first place! I did get the blame for not getting the odd 10oz to make it a double ton, I can take rollockings like that!

1st Harry Billing and Stewart Lister 199lb 06oz
2nd Charlie Hibbs and E Brown 153lb 01oz
3rd Rob Fuller and Trev Vernalls 138lb 09oz
4th Simon Poynter and Mark Charnell 109lb 08oz
Top four individuals
1st Harry Billing Mossella Garbolino 121lb 05oz
2nd Eddie Brown Isaac Walton Leigh 89lb 10oz
3rd Stewart Lister SPRO 78lb 01oz
4th Trev Vernalls 71lb 14oz

It was an enjoyable match for me, but then they are when they go to plan! Mawgan Porth is also suffering from the colder weather which resulted in lower weights than the norm. It still seems strange to me saying lower weights when a match has been won with 120lb and backing weights of 80’s and 70’s. But, to put the weights into perspective the match was won last week with 160lb!

On the grapevine

I hear that White Acres is fishing well for the resident matches and pellet seems to be doing the damage at the moment. Best weight came from peg 13 on Twin Oaks with 143lb taken on waggler / bomb and pellet. There was also 100lb plus weights from Acorn taken on pellet and corn.