Clocking up the Miles

The van was loaded early Thursday morning and Harry and I set off for an early look at Maver Larford, in Worcestershire in preparation for the pairs final in a couple of weeks time. It was the last two days of the Larford festival and we wanted to see how quality anglers approached the venue. We thought it would give us a good insight into how the venue would fish under match conditions as neither of us has seen the place before.

First Impressions

We arrived when the match was a couple of hours old and to say we were impressed with the venue is an understatement! Just sitting in the car park, overlooking the lakes you can see it’s a class venue, we could see anglers catching everywhere. We had a walk around the whole venue together and a saw anglers catching on all methods long pole, short pole, waggler, feeder the place was solid with fish. I have to say the pegging was very generous and will obviously be much tighter on our match, but I have not seen so many fish caught in a match before, the place is fantastic! Mawgan Porth probably can touch it for numbers of fish but certainly not the size, some of them are huge.

We split up and had a walk around on our own I sent a little time ‘spying ‘on a couple of anglers on the Specimen Lake and at the end I helped with the weighing it was a good opportunity to have a chat on their methods. I learnt that it hadn’t fished particularly well with only 66 kilos winning the lake! But there were a few other weights in the low 60’s and others around 50 kilos providing good back up weights. There is no doubt in my mind you have to be prepared for this venue.
The only problem was that there were no open matches on over the weekend at Larford, plenty of club matches but we couldn’t fish them. We thought it would be better to actualy practise our chosen methods just before the final so we booked into a match at Cob House Fisheries for Saturday as we didn’t really want day pleasure fishing. We spent the night in Pershore at the Pirate of Penzance’s place, Jim was away working in London but had kindly let us stay. We had a great Ruby and a couple of beers before having an early night.

Another potential great

The next morning we went over to Cob House Fisheries in Wichenford to have a look around. My son Alex works there and he was keen to show us the hatchery and new lakes. It was very interesting seeing literally thousands of young Carp, Crucians and Tench all bred from true British stock fish. I was pleased to hear that they do not bring any fish onto the farm and the only movement of fish is one way, those that are sold. I have to say that I was convinced, and if I had a fishery I know where I would be buying my stock from, but I suppose I am biased.

Alex showed us around the stock ponds and the new lakes that have just opened for fishing. It is very impressive and to say a lot of the lakes have just been finished this year they look really good. It will be fantastic in a couple of years when the trees have grown a little more. My only concern is the platforms at the pegs, please, please put them a little closer to the water! The effort will be worthwhile and definitely move you into the premier fishery class.

Back to Larford to watch the end of the match and it was more of the same with anglers bagging on all the methods they were using. The wind had changed and was now very strong so there was a lot of edge fishing going on. It was quite interesting watching a match as it’s something I don’t normally do, I did find it worthwhile seeing how top anglers approach there fishing. Normally I only see them from the next peg and then I have my head down concentrating on my own match! I helped out with the weighing again and have to say it was very tense as a few anglers needed a section win to frame. I felt very sorry for Mosella’s Matt Smith who was an agonising 30 grams short of the section win that he needed to take victory in the festival, it’s only an ounce for those that work in old money, ouch! Two anglers so close with 63 kilos and separated by grams, oh well mustn’t grumble must try harder! There was a three way tie on points and the overall winner was Ian Giddins with an overall weight off 386. 340 Kilos. Second was Tony Dawson with 342. 860 and third was Matt Smith with 332.400. I am sure you will agree the weights are brilliant.
Harry and I are really looking forward to the Pairs final and I will tell you about that in more detail later in the month. But there is one thing for sure, I will be fishing the Maver Larford festival next year, what a fishery that is.

New Venue

Saturday dawned and we headed out to fish the open at Cob House, a stop in Worcester for breakfast saw us meet some of the other anglers fishing there. It was apparent that they thought it was a pole job with a ton needed to win! The talk was about fishing close with paste or pellet. There has only been about three or four matches on the new venue so, no experts at the moment and methods are still been worked out. They did say that it was difficult to keep the fish coming as they seemed to back off after a couple of fish but soon came back on the feed. I had a couple of ideas of how to fish it after speaking with Alex.
I had my dip and out came peg 36 which was an end peg and I was told it was a good area. I had an island the same as everybody else at about 30 metres. I made my mind up to fish the pole at 6 metres and at 14 ½ metres. I was going to feed one ball of dampened fishery micro pellets on the short line and two bigger balls on the long line, I would feed 6mm pellets over the long line to try and bring them up in the water.

My rigs were made up on slightly lighter line than I normally use, after all I was ‘up country’ and keep reading how the northern boys think .14 is tow rope! I used a Walter Series 5 float in a .3 gram for the close line in about 4’ of water and a .5 gram pattern for the deeper line. Shotting was identical with only a bulk just above the hook length. The hook was a 18’s 911 again a lighter hook than I normally fish. I also set up a pellet waggler with a Carp Silver Back float to fish the island.

Listers End

At the all in I cupped out the bait on both lines and had a change of mind. I started to loose feed the island with a view to catching carp on the waggler. The start was slow down our end but I could see Alex on the other end peg catching well. The wind had changed and was blowing down towards him. I thought it quite ironic that they have named a lake after Alex on the fishery and called it Listers End, and here we are on Laugherne Island Pool with Listers on each end!
After about 10 minutes or so my float started going under and I was putting the odd carp in the net. I was using Yorkshire baits 4mm Kopy Kat soft pellet on the hook and I had treated my feed pellets with some glug in the same flavour. As had been mentioned after a few fish were caught they backed off slightly. I found by giving them a small ball of pellets and fishing the longer line I could keep them coming, although I felt I needed to catch a little faster. I could see a little further up the lake thatHarry hadn’t taken long to take a liking to the place and he was bagging as was the guy next to him.
After an hour I tried the waggler and just couldn’t believe it when the float didn’t go under, I had been feeding it from the off so the fish should have been queuing up. Changing the depth and I finally had one on the waggler. They really fight well and are lovely looking fish, a couple more followed and then it went quite. I was now wishing that I had set up a pellet feeder as I was sure it would work. I persevered on the pole swopping lines and nicking the odd fish but felt I was falling behind Harry.
Eventually at 3 o’clock with 1 ½ hours left I got off my box and set up a pellet feeder. Casting tight to the island with a 6mm on the hook I had 10 in 10 chucks, what a numpty! I had been thinking about this for ages as well. I have to say the fish backed off but by alternating with the pole I did keep fish coming until the end of the match. The fish on the feeder were bigger samples as well with the odd 5 pounder thrown in.

It wasn’t long before the scales came round and I knew that the leader ( I must apologise I never got his full name other than Ron) was winning with 95lb and Harry was second with 89lb I thought it was going to be close. Eventually my fish were totalled at 84lb for third place. You have heard many people say that they wish they could fish the match again and it would be different, well knowing what I know now it really would be different! The trouble is the venue is 250 miles from home so it’s unlikely I will have the chance very often.

Well that’s it for me, this will be my last piece until after the Maver Final on 16th August as I have loads of things to catch up on. There is one thing for sure a short break will leave me raring to go when I hit the road again. I have a busy calendar towards the back end of summer with a trip to fish the Fishin4Fun festival in my native Yorkshire in September, followed by the White Acres Autumn Festivals plus loads more individuals matches, until then keep those strings tight