Dreamer

Time is just passing me by at the moment; I have just not found enough of the precious commodity to write about the Preston Innovations festival at White Acres. Out of all the festivals this is perhaps the biggest as the top 24 get to fish in the Parkdean Masters worth a massive £25,000 it has long been an ambition of mine to compete in the final, I really hoped that this would be the year. It was a change of accommodation and new lodge mates as Jon Arthur, Neil McKinnon and Frankie Gianoncelli joined me in our lodge not far from the fabulous Jennies Lake. It is great staying with anglers of this calibre as the amount of knowledge on offer is unbelievable, even from the young Frankie; I always learn something when I go fishing and staying with this trio I was sure to pick up some great tips. As I am a few weeks behind this will be quick run through the week to enable me to catch up with current events down in the South West.

The first day and it was either Trewaters or Twin Oaks for me and I was pleased with my draw of 19 at Trewaters. The wind was howling from right to left and I must admit that I fancied my chances on this peg. It was going to be method feeder to the far bank along with pole at top two plus two sections and an edge rig to my left. Floats were J8 4 x 14 for the deeper water and 4 x 8 for the edge I was hoping the wire stems was going to be perfect in the windy conditions. Meat was the main bait for the pole and I had a selection of pellets and maggots for the method.

The match started on the thod but I just could not get a bite, there was no indications on the tip and no change in water colour against the far bank which indicates the fish grubbing around. After about 15 minutes I decided to fish the pole. I was soon into fish and it was all varieties that were playing today small carp, F1’s, skimmers and tench found their way into my keepnet. It was nice fishing but not exactly prolific. I tried the edge but that didn’t really respond until much later in the match. I felt the fish wanted to feed be up in the water but I’m afraid it was too windy for me. I saw Martyn Howard on next peg 21 have a go at around 11m but he could not keep them coming shallow, I guess it was down to poor presentation in the strong wind. Martyn managed to have a good spell on the method in the middle of the match and a good end period down the edge to finish with a section winning 72lb I found some carp and F1’s down the edge, to finish with over 50lb which was third in section. I was disappointed and felt that I should have weighed more but on the other hand also felt I had got out of jail and 7 points wasn’t such a disastrous start.

Acorn flyer

Day two saw me pull flyer peg 15 Acorn from the bag of dreams, I was really pleased with this draw and arrived at the peg in a very positive frame of mind, perhaps too positive! I looked at the swim and it was if there was a sign on the far bank saying ‘Cast Here’ with big arrows pointing at a gap in the Gorse, it looked that good! I set two method feeders up, a 5m pole line and an edge rig I was ready with an hour to go, I even walked away from the lake to stop myself setting up more kit!

Well, this was a really disappointing match as I just could not catch; in fact it was probably an hour into the match before I had my first carp, and that was a contender for the smallest carp in the lake! I could not believe it as I sat there with no indications; I was pleased with my casting and was dropping the thod tight to the bank. I sat there and watched the three anglers that I could see all catching man this is a frustrating game sometimes.

I managed a couple of carp from my 5m line and did catch a few on the method but it was nowhere near enough as I finished with around 25lb for stone bonkers last in section. On one hand I was disappointed with the result but on the other I had tried my best to make what I thought were the correct methods work, so I couldn’t kick myself too much.

After match craic

I was last to arrive in the car park and as I did my mate ‘The Bream God of Porth’ Micky Kearns was just driving out, he wound his window down and shouted back at me ‘ Man, you did well avoiding all those fish’ I could hear him laughing all the way to the road! He was in a good mood having just won our section with 59lb of pole caught carp.  I must admit I had a giggle as he took the Michael. The craic is all part of the sport and it is certainly part of match fishing, but if you give it out you have also got to be able to take it, as what goes around definitely comes around. His comments were committed to the memory banks for future use, but I never realised I was going to be able to get my own back so quickly!

Porth

Day three arrived and I was Porth bound, I had not changed my kit around so much for the days match as I really didn’t know how I was going to approach the match. Two sections had the potential for a big fish approach and the other two were an out and out ‘proper match’ fishing the pole and feeder for skimmers and roach. I decided to take everything with me and sort it out after the draw at Porth. As I had drawn peg 35 I knew it was the pole and feeder for me, it took some time reorganising everything as I didn’t want to leave anything behind, it is a long walk!

Captain Pugwash!

I was one of the last in the car park and decided to let the boat take my kit up to Pixies Point to save a bit of time. I was the only one waiting when he arrived back from the far side. I loaded the boat and the guy asked if I wanted a lift, I was on the boat in a flash. I thought I would ask him if he would mind dropping me off at the end of the match length as it is a shorter walk. He said he would drop me at my peg if I wanted, absolutely brilliant! In fact I got out of the boat in my peg, unloaded my kit from the water and the only time I got onto the bank was to walk back at the end of the match!

Neil McKinnon had leant me a new Preston Innovations platform and it was like a pontoon. In fact it was probably the best platform I have ever used, very sturdy with loads of room to moor my box and the boat come to think of it! The platform is definitely on my Christmas list.

My tackle consisted of three pole rigs which were all J5 floats I had 4 x 16 a 4 x 14 and a 4 x 12 all had a Cralusso 0.8 hook length to either a 16 or 18 B511 hook, the lighter rig was for fishing around two foot off bottom in 7’ of water. I decided to fish as Adam Richards had done the previous week over loose fed hemp with maggot on the hook, loose feeding casters hoping to catch on the shell as the match progressed, I only fished 6 sections of pole as it was again windy. I also set up a crumb feeder and that is what I started on. I had 6 very small roach in the first 10 minutes and decided that if that is what was feeding it would be better on the pole.

I had a bite first drop in from a small roach and continued to catch throughout the match, the fish were mainly small roach but towards the end I found some nice dumpy roach that I caught on the caster. I cannot remember how many fish I had but it was over 150 it was a very enjoyable match. I had a bit of Pike trouble which cost me a few of the better fish, but they were not too bad for me at least they didn’t put the roach of feeding. I finished with around 12lb which was good enough for second in section. It was tight with at least two other similar weights but the winner had over 13lb from peg 34 he caught a couple of better fish on the feeder and also some bigger fish on the pole over groundbait. Perhaps I should have persevered a little longer on the feeder, never mind I really enjoyed the match.

Mark Brennan won the day from peg 71 with around 46lb of big Bream on the method feeder and Adam Barnes was second with 38lb from peg 16. I looked around the car park for’ Mick the Porth Bream God’ but he was nowhere to be seen. As he was on peg 74 I expected a big weight from him, asking around I discovered to my amazement that he had blanked! Now Mick, what was that you were saying about doing well, avoiding all of those fish? As I drove away from Porth I just could not get the lyrics of Supertramps 1974 hit record ‘Dreamer’ out of my mind, it goes something like this:

‘Breamer, you know you are a Breamer,

Well you can put your hand in the bag, Oh no

I said Breamer, your nothing but a Breamer.

Well can you put your hands in the bag, Oh no

I said Far out, what a day, a year, a laugh it is

You know, well you know, you had it comin’ to you

Now there’s not a lot that I can do

Breamer, you stupid little Breamer

So now you put your head in your hands, Oh no, Breamer……
Home draw at Bolingey

The following day I was standing at the back of the queue talking to Alan Hodgeon waiting my dip in the bag of dreams for our day out at Bolingey. Alan said go on mate put your hand in and pull out 27, I don’t think neither of us could quite believe it when 27 came out of the bag firmly in my hand, we were jumping round the draw queue like a  couple of teenagers!

It is a peg that I have always wanted to draw and to say I was up for it was an understatement! When I got to the lake I just could not believe what I saw. The lake was as flat as a mirror, not a breath of wind anywhere, for the last two weeks it had been blowing hard into the peg, Oh no mustn’t grumble, I was still more than happy sitting on the peg.

I had pole rigs to cover the island at 12m and rigs for the 5m line to my left and right towards the bridge and also edge rigs for both sides. I didn’t want to set too much tackle up I wanted no distractions from my plan, which was simply fishing meat against the island and also on my other lines. The limit is two units so I bulked it out with some hemp and I also had some pellets to make up my full 8 unit limit in case they wanted it. The match started and I fed a small amount on my 5m line and went over on the 12m line, I had some indications that were probably liners and about 10 minutes in a proper bite resulted in a good fish. It was a nice Mirror carp approaching 10lb and it really did fight well. In that first 45 minutes I had two more and guessed I had around 30lb so not a bad start.

When is the next one coming?

After three hours I had around 35lb it had been dire, I could not buy a bite on any of my lines. I just kept dripping in feed and rotating around my three swims hoping to find something but it just wasn’t happening. Opposite on peg 45 the angler was catching a few fishing shallow but I noticed they were a small stamp so stuck with the plan, it was tempting to set something else up though! With 90 minutes to go I started catching some carp towards the middle of the bridge to my right. I also had some to my left and the last hour was pretty manic with several coming to the net, Oh man why couldn’t a few more have had a go in those middle three hours? I finished up with around 115lb which was only good enough for fourth in section. The pegs in the other lake and my section had fished really well with Martin Howard framing with 168lb from peg 23 plus weights of 150lb and 130lb from Cameron Hughes and Jamie Parkhouse on pegs 19 and 20. The winner on the day though was Adam Rooney with 170lb from peg 11 brilliant weights from a fantastic fishery.

The end of the festival

The final day and I needed a section win to stand a remote chance of getting into the final but all hopes of that evaporated when I pulled peg 4 on the Match Lake from the BOD, it is just not where I wanted to be, especially on the final day of two consecutive festivals! Ironically in a previous festival Adam Rooney and I were amongst the last to draw and that day we drew next to each other on the high bank, today he drew next to me on peg 6. I don’t know why but we had a couple of blank pegs on our lake and one of the pegs not drawn was peg 26 which didn’t make any of us on the poor pegs feel any better!

I really had no interest in fishing for Carp and thought I would fish for silvers for the day just to see what I could catch. Unfortunately the wind was strong so I gave up on the idea of fishing long at 14.5m on the slope of the island where I really wanted to fish worm. To cut a long story short it was a bit of a struggle but I managed just short of 16lb which included one small carp on the caster and finished halfway in the section.

Tommy Pickering presents Andy with the trophy and £3,000 Picture courtesy of News Reel

I enjoyed the week and felt I had some great draws but just could not convert them into enough points to progress into the Park Dean final, Oh hum maybe next year.

Many congratulations to Garbolino’s Andy Geldart on winning the festival with 35 points he was joined by three other anglers on the same point but he had better dropped points and a superior weight advantage. Darren Cox came second followed by Lee Edwards and Steve Ringer.

Once again many thanks to Preston Innovations’ who sponsored the event with some great prizes for the winners. Tommy Pickering made a great speech on behalf of the sponsor and welcomed all the top 24 to the stage as well as all the competitors; I thought that was a great touch. Once again the fishery team made it a very enjoyable week at White Acres.