Maver Larford, the Start of an Exciting Month

August 2011 is perhaps one of the most exciting times in my match angling career, a short period in time that I am really looking forward to. There is no doubt about it, it’s going to be very hectic, I do know that I intend to enjoy every last minute of it! Amongst other things this month I take part in the Maver festival at Larford, the 120 peg Maver Pairs and The 120 peg British Pole Championship and on 20^th August the £50,000 winner takes all Maver Mega Match Final!

A few days after the final I am away on family holiday in France arranged by the long suffering Vivien, after zooming up and down the M5 and taking part in all of the above I am really grateful to her for arranging a surprise break, I am even pleased that she has banned my fishing rods!

Maver Festival Larford

The Arena Lake

The festival started promptly at 9am with Maver Larford boss Phil Briscoe calling us all to order with a welcoming address. Following that there was a pre draw to determine our permutation around the lakes, this not only puts the angler in a different section every day but, it mixes the anglers up as well, so that you do not fish with the same people in your section for the whole week. A great idea but one that does take a little time, still it was a friendly bunch and everybody was in good humour as we waited. Following that draw, there was another section draw to decide your fate for the day. I ended up on Arena peg 32, I was a couple out of the corner. I have only ever fished this lake once before and then it was a proper bagging job down the edge or whatever you wanted to do! I was told it was much harder this year and the information was not wrong!

The First day

I decided to fish chop worm and caster at 5 and 11m looking for 20 kilos of all that could swim. I chose that line as there was a reasonable depth and there were some very fishy type bubbles which I hoped were skimmers feeding. It was about 6’ deep so a 4 x 16 J 8 float was about right for the situation. I had other rigs for fishing shallow and down the edge which looked good. At the start I potted some worm and caster on both lines and also fed an edge swim. I spent the match between my main two lines, but to be honest found it a difficult lake to master. I could find plenty of small roach and skimmers but not the weight building ones I was hoping for! I found by fishing two or three dead red maggot on my longer line I could catch a few ‘stockie’ carp but it was hard going. My edge line had plenty of feeding fish grubbing around in the margins but they were difficult to catch. I think I managed a couple during the last hour. I managed two better carp by fishing shallow and dobbing an 8mm pellet in front of cruising fish and wished that I concentrated more on that method throughout the day. I finished with around 12 kilos which was midway in the section.

Specimen Lake, river bank

Peg 52 on the Speci Lake

The next day I drew peg 52 on the Specimen lake it was a nice end peg draw but I couldn’t help but think it was the wrong end as the wind was blowing down away from my end of the lake. It is a noted peg and I was definitely going to give it my best shot. The method was going to be my main line of attack, fished at around 15 metres out. I also had a pole line for fishing under the big Willow tree and a pole line at around 5m out but I chose this at an angle towards the end of the Willow branches to my left in around 6’ of water.

At the start I fed some 6mm meat under the tree in where I found it was around 3’ deep. I started on the method with a 6mm pellet as bait, most anglers to my right balled their method lines.  I chose to just try to build it up with feed introduced by the feeder as balling it hadn’t really worked for Graham Dack the previous day. I started catching some nice big skimmers and enjoyed the start of the match but after awhile the bites slowed. I had a try under the tree and caught a couple of small skimmers which is not what I really wanted, that is until a nice sized Tench put in an appearance which gave me a bit more hope.

What yow using?

Eventually I had a good bite which resulted in a bit more elastic being pulled from the pole and it was a carp of around 5lb, I played it practically to the net when I heard a shout from Adam Wakelin on the opposite bank. He had seen a Seagull attacking a small fish that the angler next to him had caught on the pellet waggler, the lad came from Birmingham and Adam shouted in what can only be described as a loud Nottingham type, Brummie accent ‘What yow using, gull food?’ I found it hilarious for some reason and laughed so much I lost my Carp, never mind mustn’t grumble!

The match went on and I had a few more fish on the method and a few from the edge of the tree, finally with under an hour to go the fish turned up in my margin to my left under the tree and I had a few carp from that line, unfortunately they were small by Larford standard and late!  I enjoyed the match finishing with around 26 kilo which was around halfway in the section. Andy Bennett winning the section from a few pegs to my right, he fished a great match on the method and pole at 5m. I really learnt a lot watching a really good young angler in action.

The match lake

Mark Warne demonstrates how shallow it is

Wednesday was one of the days I was looking forward to as I was on the grass bank of the Match Lake, and the real reason I had entered the festival. I obviously wanted to learn as much as possible about this lake for the forthcoming final. I knew that this side of the lake was not responding to the pole as the water was really low and made this shallow bank even shallower! The previous couple of days had seen fish caught on the straight lead so that was going to be my main plan along with the pellet waggler. I just could not resist setting up a pole even though my neighbour Mark Warne had demonstrated just how shallow the lake was by walking out to about 9 metres and the water didn’t even reach his knees! I was around the middle of the lake a couple of pegs away from the rope that holds the aerator.

Good start

My match started on the waggler and it was a great start with a 5 pound carp first cast, it’s always nice when that happens! I had a couple of smaller carp before I got smashed by much bigger fish, the bites stopped on the waggler as the wind got stronger. Changing to the straight lead and I caught on and off for the duration of the match on 8mm pellet. I finished the match with over 38 kilos which was good enough for second on the lake, two kilos behind Andy Kinder who was on the opposite bank.

Match lake again

Thursday saw me on the other bank of the Match Lake near enough opposite where I was the previous day. I had Preston Innovations backed Neil McKinnon for company and I was really pleased that I drew next to him. Neil is a fantastic angler and I was looking forward to seeing how he approached the match, in my opinion this is the only way to learn our trade, getting beaten up on the next peg is fine in my book, as long as you take something away from the experience and learn for next time, that is why I was here and I wanted to draw next to the top anglers.

My main approach was the pole at 6m and I felt I couldn’t ignore the straight lead after the previous day. I obviously had rigs for shallow fishing and the margins. I had an enjoyable match and caught 26 kilo of mainly F1 carp and skimmers on meat on my 6m line. I could not catch anything shallow and only had a few on the straight lead. There were carp feeding in my margins but they were very difficult to catch I managed one and lost one. Neil won the section with around 44 kilo and immediately after the match I was off my box chatting with him on his approach to the match and inspecting his rigs. Neil could not have been more helpful. The majority of the top anglers in our sport are very approachable, after the match is the time to speak with them; it’s not right to question too much before the start, or during the match as they need that time to prepare and to concentrate whilst actually fishing.

Nearly over

Like all festival the time just disappeared at an amazing speed and we were on the final day, I was on the Specimen Lake and drew peg 19 it was a great section draw and had done well all week. Today was all about trying for the lake win in my book, as I was not in contention for

the main list of prize winners. Perhaps I didn’t have the peg for winning but I was going to try anyway! I set up a waggler and chose a

They know when it's safe to feed

4 gram Cralusso Rocket which gave me the opportunity to fish a long way out if I needed to and would also be fine for fishing closer or at least as far as I could feed 8mm pellets! I had a straight lead and pole lines at 5mm and down the edge. I did set up a method rod just in case it was working for anybody else.

The day was quite hard as it was very sunny with little wind, not what we really wanted it would have been nice to have a ripple on the water. I managed a couple of nice sized Bream on the waggler but just could not find any Carp on the float or the straight lead. On the pole I was initially pestered by small fish but did find some quality Skimmers and one Carp. I am afraid nothing came into my margin swim, that is until 20 minutes after the all out and then it was absolutely solid with some great big creatures. It always amazes me as to how the Carp know it is now safe for them to come in and have a free meal after the final whistle has gone!

The verdict

Andy Kinder Wins the Festival

The Top Three

I really enjoyed the weeks fishing and felt that I had learnt quite a bit about the complex on my first Larford festival. The fishing really is first class with around 19,500 pounds of fish caught during the week proving that point! Ian Giddins was leading the festival for four days with a perfect score with Andy Kinder a point behind going into the final day. Ian drew on the Burr Bank of the Match Lake and dropped his first points of the festival eventually finishing third in section in a very close match. Andy fishing a superb match on the Burr Bank of the Specimen Lake winning his section and winning the festival! What a fantastic result for a very good angler, well done. Thanks must go to the staff at Maver Larford for putting on a very professionally run festival.

Top seven anglers:

Andy Kinder 6 points

Ian Giddins 7 points

Dan Bache 10 points

Andy Bennett 10 points

Jebb Attwood 10 points

Bran Clark 10 points

Matt Pillay 10 points

Just a quick one to finish off with I stayed on to fish the Saturday open on the Match Lake as I wanted some more practice time on the water. I drew around peg 7 not far from the cafe. We were all on the grass bank. My tackle was simply a straight lead, pellet waggler and pole for the margin. It was another warm but calm day. It was a very slow start with none of us catching in the first 5 or so pegs. We could see Andy Power catching on the straight lead and it seemed to me that he was on the edge of the fish with the majority to his right. The writing looked like it was on the wall.

I was having a personal battle with Chris Hill to my right as we managed the odd fish but we had to wait for them

Twister

Around halfway through the match I heard a loud rustling noise and looked to my right in the direction of the noise and could not believe my eyes as I saw leaves being whipped up into the air as wind ripped through a line of trees, the wind left the trees and I could clearly see a ‘Twister’ blowing down the bank towards the anglers, it reached the water’s edge and tracked along the bank, there were hats and top kits blown into the lake. Just before it reached Chris it veered across the lake towards the other bank, disturbed one angler that who was fishing the club match and went over the Burr bank to the Specimen lake, it was really surreal sitting there watching it. Fortunately there was no real damage but a few anglers lost their caps!

Back to the fishing and another lesson!

Following the excitement of the wind show we were back to concentrating on our fishing. A few fish were caught but it was slow. I used the time to experiment, setting up a few different things that didn’t work! But I felt I had to try as it was fishing hard. Towards the end of the match I caught a few more including a nice carp from the margin. As the scale came down the bank Perry Stone asked what I had I told him around 50lb and he told me that I was in contention as he was leading with 61lb I was surprised as we all assumed the other end was fishing well. The scales arrived and I weighed 56lb which ended up as fourth. I kicked myself a bit as I felt I should have won the match. If I had continued fishing for the full five hours I am sure I could have caught a couple more and gained those extra few pounds. Still mustn’t grumble I was there or there abouts and at least trying to learn the lakes secrets, at least I learnt a lesson for the final, and that is don’t give up until that final whistle!