Blinkers!

Mawgan Porth was the venue for the Wednesday open and with 20 booked in I was looking forward to the match. I had a walk around the lake with Harry and Mick Heacock before the draw, it was looking good with a nice colour and a few fish splashing around. Mick was saying that he had never been on the island and he fancied 46 or 47 I could not fault his choices. Peg 5 looked the business and there was certainly more colour down that end of the lake, I wanteda low or high draw. now, that shouldn’t be too difficult? Back to the draw and I had my dip and out came peg 8, it was low but I would have liked lower, never happy!

Never mind I have drawn this peg a few times and was feeling confident. Back to the van to unload, Harry wasn’t happy with his draw of peg 13 and he thought that it was going to be a struggle for him today. Mick had got his wish and was on peg 46 he is on form at the moment so I expected a big weight from him today.

I wandered down to my peg and was a little dismayed to see anglers on peg 5, 6, 7 and 9 and with myself on 8 I felt we were pegged a little too tight. Everybody else seemed to have loads of room! Mustn’t grumble, the weather was looking good and it was good to be on the bank. I delved into the memory banks and remembered that I caught down the edge to my right the last time I was on the peg and also at four sections, so that was going to be my approach for the day. It didn’t take long to get ready, in fact some of my rigs were already on my top kits!

For bait I had some micro pellet with me as well as some garlic soft pellet. I also had a couple of pints of maggots and with the pegging I was glad that I had.
At the whistle I went down the edge on my left and fed both sides, no bites after a couple of minutes, I went to the right which I felt was going to be the most productive, wrong! No bites there as well. In fact I never had a single bite down either margin in the whole match! (I still cannot believe this as I type now a few days later) John Dudley on peg 7 was catching well as was my neighbour on bridge peg 9. Time to put the blinkers on and get my heads down.

I went out to 4 sections and started getting the odd fish but it was slow going, John Waples opposite me on 38 was also finding it on the slow side and was also searching his swim looking for fish. I was having to move around my swim taking a few fish from one area and then a few from somewhere else! I had been throwing a small ball of micros close in on my top two and decided to give it a go there. In fact it was the most productive area and that is where I stayed until the end of the match.

I knew I had been well beaten but decided to weigh in any event. My first weigh was around 32lb that was from the net that I had used for the first 2 ½ hours, the second net contained 56lb which was again well off the pace but it just showed what a slow start I had.

Harry had managed 190lb for another win and this from the peg that he didn’t fancy! Just goes to show what we know about fish! He told me it was solid down the edge from the off, he had caught all match on his favourite caster approach. Mick Heacock continued his good run with 161lb from peg 46 for second. The other weights were third Mark Pleavin from peg 42 with 141lb 9ozs, fourth Andy Nelson from peg 11 with 131lb 2ozs and fifth John Dudley on peg 7 with 128lb 5ozs.

Bad News – No Porth

On Friday morning I received a text from John Forster telling me that due to a poor response the Porth match on Sunday was cancelled! I was not a happy bunny as I had been nurturing casters and preparing rigs in expectation for a good match. I tried to text him back but the predictive text on my phone just wouldn’t find the words I was looking for!

I called him and booked into the match he was running at Gunnabarn fishery on Saturday as I was only fishing the one match this weekend. John also was disappointed with cancelling the match, he told me that on Thursday he sent out 25 texts trying to get a response but to no avail. The match had been advertised for weeks on the local website. I hear all too often that,

Porth is the best fishery we have down here in the SW and it’s not used enough, when organisers try the response is pathetic. I really do not understand it.

Todays lesson

Saturday morning came and I really felt ambivalent about the day, I was again unprepared for the match as I had my Porth head on. Never mind the sun was shining which made a welcome change! I loaded the van and was soon at the Barns. It really is a nice looking place and very peaceful. It had been closed for match fishing for a few weeks whilst some work was carried out on the lakes. It was nice to be back.

I had my dip and out came peg 10 in fact I was last in the queue and that is all that was left for me. That’s the snag pit that you drew last time I was told, I couldn’t believe it! Every time I come here I fail because I never set a feeder up. The last couple of occasions I have not been able to because of the swim I have drawn! Oh Man this is frustrating. I wandered down to the peg and sat down. This was not the peg I was on last time; I was definitely one to my right. I got a rundown of the swim from Simon Poynter and he was adamant that peg had the deep hole on the far bank with slate edge.

Not that I doubted him but I put on a bomb and cast to the far bank, wound a few turns and sure enough the bomb disappeared into a deep hole! A couple of more turns and it was snagged solid, pulling for the break I lost the lot. What’s more I still hadn’t put my bombs back in my box, what a numpty!

The lesson is unless you know for sure the makeup of the swim have a good plumb around and find out. If I had done this on my previous visit I would have fished a feeder and in all probability caught the couple of fish I needed to frame. Oh, the other lesson is if you realise something is not in your fishing box make sure you replace it!

I had a conversation with Harry about the Barns and he is firmly of the opinion that a small method feeder is the key to success here, I think he is spot on. I have never fished venues that the method is allowed on, so consequently have never fished it. In fact, I only have a couple of method feeders that I purchased with Larford in mind a few weeks ago, and they were a little large for here. So I decided to fish the pellet feeder to the right side of my swim away from the black hole.

I also set up a pole to fish on the bar at about 10 metres. For some reason this match all seemed a bit rushed when the whistle went I was not ready, far from it in fact. It seemed like we were in the car park for a long time and after the draw it was a rush to get started! Perhaps I was chatting too much, in any event Boz Phillips to my right was also way of the pace, time wise that is and we both started some 10 minutes or so behind everybody else.

Boz fished the method and before long he was catching well, I on the other hand was not! I had a couple on my feeder but could tell it was wrong. The fish were attacking the feeder, my tip was dancing but I could not convert the indications into bites despite fishing a short hook length. On my left Nigel Taylor was catching well on the feeder and also on the pole to the island at about 12 metres. I was getting the blinkers out for the second time in a week!

This is one of those matches that I just want to forget so that’s what I am going to do! To sum the match up – everything I tried I lost fish on, the pellet waggler, the pole and the feeder. Some were to snags the others just came off my Teflon coated hooks. I even late on set up the method feeder and caught a few on that but again started to lose fish, I am not sure what I was doing wrong but whatever it was I hope I don’t do it again!

On the plus side it was a fantastic day, the sun shone all day and the company was good, Leeds won away from home so what more could I want? Very well done to Boz and Trev Conroy who had a great peg to peg battle it was close but he did give you a start Trev!

1st Boz Phillips peg 8 54 lb 12 oz
2nd Trev Conroy peg 7 51 lb 08 oz
3rd Alan Hurley peg 2 43 lb 08 oz
4th Nigel Taylor peg 11 41 lb 12 oz
5th Simon Poynter peg 13 25 lb 10 oz
6th= Stewart Lister peg 10 & John Forster peg 2 both 20 lb

Well I am looking for my thermals as I travel ‘up country’ on Monday to Yorkshire, I’m fishing in the Fishing4fun mini festival, I am really looking forward to it. Three completely new waters for me to try so it will be a real test. No doubt I will need my blinkers again so they are definitely packed along with my bombs!