Saturday was the start of a very busy period on the fishing front for me with the prospect of nine back to back matches to attend! I was looking forward to all of them but I have been praying to the fishing gods for a break in the weather as I am now officially fed up with the wind and the rain, we seem to have had both for an eternity, please Lord Pisces let me have a peg out of the wind!
We arrived at White Acres for the Kernow Match Group Winter League which was to be held on the Match Lake and Sycamore. After two poor rounds at Gwinear my SAS team really needed to pull our socks up and score some points. I felt that I had to stay away from the draw bag and duly delegated Skip the responsibility of finding three good pegs for us. He came back with the news that I was on peg 43 on the match lake, he had peg 7 on the same lake and Andy Partridge had peg 8 on Sycamore. Initial thoughts were they are not too bad but both Skip and I had to compete with pegs that were out of the arms. We knew from other local matches that the ends of our sections nearest to the high bank would be very good, if the fish were not in residence down the arms we could be in deep trouble. This was a silver fish only round and this time, F1’s were also on the banned list.
Lovely
My peg looked nice and there were small fish topping all over the place. It was a pole only for me and I was grateful to be out of the wind for a change. I could practically reach over with 14.5m of pole so I made a rig to fish a metre of the bank in about 5’ of water. Other rigs were assembled to fish in the deepest part at 11m where I found a little over 7’ before it started to get shallower going towards the island. I also had edge rigs to look for those VIP’s that’s ‘Very Important Perch’ as I have christened those big old Billy’s! A shallow rig completed my setup.
I had three pints of casters a couple of kilos of Yorkshire Baits Green Betaine ground bait, worms, maggots and pinkies with me so were prepared for anything and enough bait to catch a shedful of fish! I was looking forward to the start, the rain had stopped the sun was starting to come out it was beginning to look like we were going to have the perfect days fishing. Yes, alright I agree I was getting carried away. It was the lull before the storm and an hour into the match the rain came with a vengeance and it never stopped until after the match, it was that heavy stuff as well even though I had my brolly up I still had to put up with the march of the pinkie, the little sods got everywhere and at the end of the match I didn’t have a single one in my bait container!
Fishing wise it was a bit of a disaster for us I beat one angler in my section and believe it or not I was top scorer in the team! Team Donkey comes to mind or more appropriate ‘Team ASS’, Skip you are definitely not drawing for us on the next round your worse than me! Team Gwinear paralysed the match winning all three sections and guest angler Steve Sanders winning the match from Sycamore. If you are going to get a ringer get a good one! Steve was stepping in for Andy Dare who is suffering from a trapped nerve and is in agony at home. Get well soon mate we all miss you renditions on the bank!
Oh, I nearly forgot I weighed 8lb 12oz which comprised of quite a few very small roach which I caught on the long pole. I could catch 5 or 6 before they backed off and needed a rest, I caught a couple of VIP’s down the edge but I had to wait for bites for ages which indicated to me that the fish down the arms had gone on their holidays. At least I won a pound from Pete Thomas who is known to his team mates as G10 (Did you know that he has just got a new pole?) he was on the next peg to me, well I would have won a pound if he had remembered to get it out of his pocket!
Blue Water
Before I leave the Saturday match there is just one more thing that I feel compelled to mention and it concerns my mate Tourettes Taylor, now normally as you can imagine Nigel normally turns the air around him blue, on this match he decided that this was just not enough so he tried to turn the water blue! At least that’s what happened when he fell in up to the neck! He still managed to finish second in his section with around 21lb well done mate, I did overhear someone saying that you owe Clint a few quid as the day ticket doesn’t include swimming!
As I drove away from White Acres Rod Stewart was on the radio singing it’s raining in Georgia, how very apt!
Sunday
Sunday was the Individual league match at Trewater’s and I was hoping for a better days fishing than yesterday. With 30 booked in practically all the pegs were taken, with the lake topping up with fresh water the prospects were not looking good. I always look forward to fishing the Farm but today I was wavering a little, well to be honest it was more like rocking in the wind! I was praying for a peg in a sheltered area but my drawing arm let me down. Peg 43 was to be my home for the day and it was not one that I would have picked given the choice! The wind was howling down the lake left to right, what was potentially worse and it gave me some concern was the amount of water emptying into my swim from the overflow pipes from the top lake! It felt like I was fishing in a weir pool, now where did I leave my stick floats?
The Plan
I needed a match plan; I briefly contemplated going home and watching Leeds play Kettering but decided to stay! It was obvious to me that if I was going to fish the pole it had to be long but 11m was going to be the maximum I could manage in the wind. That was the line I chose and a .6 gram Spro mid water float was chosen for that line the depth was the same as 5m so I could also feed a line there more in hope than anything else. Both lines were going to receive one ball of Green Betaine GB containing some garlic micro pellets. I thought of fishing the method feeder but at the last minute changed my mind in favour of a small Drennan crumb feeder I attached a .5gram adhesive feeder weight to this to help it stay put on the slope.
My plan was to fish the feeder tight to the island for 30 minutes trying for a carp and then drop down the slope into the deeper water. That worked well for me with a 2lb carp first cast that came after a 5 minute wait. I had no more bites on that line but managed some smaller carp and F1’s at the bottom of the slope. On the pole I found 6 skimmers and two F1’s that took a fancy to Candy white soft pellets and the odd one on a 4mm garlic pellet. The last 40 minutes saw me back on the feeder tight to the island catching a further 4 small carp. The total weight was 10lb 7oz which was fortunately for me was good enough to win the section. It was a hard days fishing but sticking to the plan worked a treat on this match.
The match was won by Arthur Turner from peg 24 on the top lake he had 29lb of skimmers and F1’s I was one of the last to get back to the car park so missed all the other results but considering the weather, the farm did us proud. Andy Partridge also won his section it’s a shame we cannot get it together in the winter league! The weights were on the low side but winter has definitely arrived down here in deepest Cornwall and after a mild October through to Mid November we are going to suffer a bit until those silvers get acclimatised to winter.
Well that was match two of nine finished! It’s now the Mosella / Garbolino Winter Festival at White Acres which hopefully will provide great weeks fishing that’s followed by a double header weekend, after that little lot I will be taking a well earned rest back at work!
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hi stewart do you think the overflow pipe running into your peg killed it ???? just that i fished a peg like that saturday with the water from the lake above pouring in an could not buy a bite
Hi Mark, the water running in didn’t help but in all probability the water temperature of the incoming water would have been the same as the bottom lake water. The lake didn’t fish as well due to the bad weather, roll on the spring!
your right there mate my mate tells me he used to fish with you call him andy stoner you remember him??
Hi Stew,
I have seen Clint and paid my swimming lesson, I also got 8 out of 10 for the dive.
Cheers
Nige
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