Milo Festival- Final Verdict

I was chatting in the draw queue and completely forgot about the positive mental attitude bit, I put my hand in the bag and pulled out 45! I don’t believe it, and promptly turned into Victor Meldrew. As I was walking out of the club I bumped into Gwinear venue expert Andy Dare. He asked me what I had drawn, I told him 45 and looked at him as he did a goldfish impression. The mouth was moving but no words were coming out! Now, if you know Andy you will know that he is never lost for words! Sums up what he thought of my peg. Anyway nothing that could be done about it I had to go and fish it.

Good day for Daiwa sales

It was very windy and it was blowing into my bank, I decided that I was going for a simple plan of attack. I set up my 2.70 metre Escape picker rod and put a ¾ oz bomb on. I had a few casts around and found the shallow bar. I was going to fish this with very little feed looking for the odd carp. I put on a size 14 PR36 hook. I was going to fish this with double hair rigged corn and a small T bag.

Peg 46 to my left is empty, so I was going to fish near to the empty platform about 2 metes out, in about 4’ of water. This was going to be a very positive line where I hoped to draw some carp and get them grazing over a bed of loosefeed. The rig was a .2 gram Cralusso Capri made up on 0.18 line straight through to a size 14 PR28 hook. I also put up a .5 gram Capri to fish at 6 metres. This was on .14 line and had a size 16 PR28 hook so that I could have a go with all the baits I had with me.

I had 3 ½ pints of casters, ½ pint of maggots. 1 pint of 6 mm pellets and the rest was made up with corn and meat plus a kilo of worms.

Just before the match started I had to go back to the van for a drink. Whilst I was away my 4th 5th and 6th sections was blown by the wind, they were just about to go swimming, but fortunately for me it was rescued by another angler, thank you very much.

I decided to check my nearside line before the start as I had forgotton where my marker was, I put my top kit on and the weight of the plummet snapped my 4th section! I can only surmise that when it was doing the freestyle diving impression it hit something on the way! I made sure that everything was safe so that nothing else got broke.

At the start I cupped in a full 250ml cup of casters and a few chopped worms on my nearside line. I then put on double corn and a small T bag and cast to the bar. Pinging a few pellets onto my 6 metre line, I waited for the tip to pull around. After about 20 minutes I saw that Joff to my left was playing a carp that he had caught on his 5 metre line. He had broken down to his top kit and the fish decided it wanted to go for another run. He went to pick up his fourth section of his Spectron and it caught in something behind him and snapped! Not long after this my 7th to 14 metre sections took to the air and the seventh banged into my trolley and it cracked! Oh man, could the day get any worse?

I had a look on my nearside line with three maggots on the hook and the float buried immediately and I was attached to an angry 6lb common which cheered me up a bit. I had another look on the same line but with no more indications. In with some more bait and I stayed there for another five minutes with no success. Nothing either on the other pole line. Back on the straight lead and I had a mirror carp of about 5lb. That was the last bite I had until 4pm when I was trying my inside line once again, this time I had another carp.

Some more feed and out again I had another 5 in the last hour. The carp must have thought we finished the match at 4pm because they were on the feed big style! Quite a few anglers around me were catching. All too soon the match ended. I finished with 37lb, Joff on 47 had 39lb and Mark Pleavin on peg 1 had 38lb a very tight section in the end. I was pleased with the amount I caught as it was one of the best weights over the last two weeks from the peg but disappointed to finish third in section. Andy Dare won the match with 108lb from hot peg 25.

Warning, beer and wine monster about!

I stayed at White Acres that night for the first time this week. I had quite a lot to do swopping kit over for Porth the next day. Dave Schofield had a fridge full of beer and it was good having a beer whilst sorting the kit out. Well one led to another and so it went on. Full from beer we went onto red wine, reminiscing and talking A level gibberish. I couldn’t believe it when we looked at the time it was 2.15am! Straight to bed only to be woken at 6am by a flock of seagulls who were attacking the caravan! I was surprised to see three empty wine bottles on the table when I eventually got up, blinding headache and a match at Porth!

Day 5 Porth

I was late getting to the draw and was at the end of the line, there were only two pegs left in the bag whwn I got there, I picked one out and couldn’t quite believe that I was holding peg 77. Now I have been fishing matches at Porth for nigh on 20 years and have always wanted to draw that peg. I have been either side of it on a number of occasions but now it was mine for the day! For anyone that doesn’t know Porth, peg 77 has the only proper platform on the match length and it puts you about 3 metres out into the lake. No need for platforms or waders, and no need to fish a long pole, great. My headache cleared up immediately. Incidentally the other peg was end peg 40 and that went to my mate Andy Dare.

Over the last three festivals the average winning weight has been in the region of 12lb. So that was my target. I hadn’t mixed my ground bait as I wanted to see where I was drawn. I may have wanted to fish a sweet GB or fishmeal. As I was in the 70’s the target fish were skimmers, I chose 3 bags Green Swimstim and 1 of Mosella Eurocup that I mixed together. I took my drill with me so mixing was very quick. It was going to be the same mix for the feeder and pole. The feeder GB was mixed drier. I also had 3 pints of casters and a few maggots and pinkies, a tin of corn and a kilo of worms.

I set up four pole rigs and 1 feeder rod. The rigs were a 1.5 gram Cralusso Golf, a 4 x 20 KC Carpa Porth and two 4 x 16 KC Carpa Porths. The heavier floats were for the nine metre line where it was over 8’. Hook lengths were 0.10 to 18’s PR34.The lighter floats were for 5 metres and about 6’. The plan was fairly straight forward. At the all in I cupped in 4 large balls of GB packed with finely chopped up worm and casters on the nine metre line. I put 3 on the closer line. I wanted to know exactly where the feed went in. Both sides of me balled the pole line. I then had 6 quick casts on the feeder to put a bit of GB on the deck at about 18 metres out. I then put a hook length on and had three casts with bait on, I had no bites so picked up the pole. I kept an eye on the other anglers fishing the feeder just in case they started to catch well. At least I had a bit of bait out there.

Footballers

Starting on the Carpa Porth I found it was towing too much for the float so switched to the Golf and that was much better. I had a couple of small skimmers on double pinkie and then on a worm head. I was catching but it was not very quick. I could see that Chris Jenkinson on 79 had also switched to the pole and was getting a few fish.

About an hour in the float went under and I had about a 4’ of elastic come out of the pole, shipping back carefully I was thinking that maybe I had found a Bream when I broke down I saw that a 12 oz perch was the culprit, a nice bonus fish. The next four drop ins resulted in 3 other good perch and then I bumped one, a nice little run. I must have had a shoal move in and caught them quick, I never had another perch in the match.

I caught fish in fits and starts through to the end of the match. I had some better skimmers around the 10 oz mark. Funnily enough I could not make the shorter line work. I did catch three fish short, one each time I tried the line on the first put in! I could not get a bite after that one fish, really strange. Must have caught the scout on each occassion. It was a really enjoyable match, one that you had to work at to keep the fish coming. Most of the fish were caught on worm head, I had a couple on maggots and interestingly enough I never had a bite on caster. I fed around half my GB and two pints of casters.

The scales came and I was really pleased to see the scales settle on 11lb 5 oz more than I thought, I was leading the section with only Chris to weigh, he recorded 10lb 8oz another really close result. Third in section was about 6lb 8 oz. I packed up and loaded my kit onto the boat and walked back. I was over the moon to hear from the scales man that I had won the lake! Chris was second in the match. Andy Dare had won his section from 40 so perhaps it was fate that made me have that last bottle of wine!

Dorkings Ian Didcote was the festival winner with 36 points followed by Mark Pleavin and Kieran Rich. I finished with 30 points and was in 31st place.

Summing up

I really enjoyed the festival, and thinking back I could have improved on my place if I had fished a little better and perhaps made decisions a little quicker. I don’t think there was a chance of winning the section at Bolingey but could have improved on my points if I had fished longer away from the bank. I beat myself up about Tuesdays result, but a famous angler recorded 5 points from it the following day. Twin Oaks should have been two places higher. Gwinear, I was a little unlucky to finish third but wasn’t the best draw in the section.

With the rub of the green a 4 further points could have been achievable! I thought Mark Pleavin fished really well all week, he had a real mixture of draws some of them not great. Peg 4 on the match lake as an example, what a good section win that was for him. Well, that’s my festivals over until the autumn when I will be raring to go in the Maver and Parkdean matches.

Thanks must go to MILO for sponsoring the festival without great sponsors we wouldn’t
be able to take part in these fantastic festivals; all the top 20 all received some great prizes. Again, thanks to Parkdean and the staff at White Acres