By Stewart Lister | No Comments
Last updated: Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sunday couldn’t come quick enough for me as I was really looking forward to the Individual league at White Acres; I seemed to have a van full of gear as all fish were included. I had to carry my full compliment of carp gear as well as tackle for silvers just in case those carp didn’t want to know. However, it was the bait that was giving me the real headache; the weather had been mild for a few days but the match day had started cold. Consequently I had the kitchen sink in my bait bag to cover everything!

Trelawney and Twin Oaks were in as well as the Match Lake and Jennies so we all anticipated that a big weight would be needed to take the honours. Getting closer to the bag of dreams and I fancied a day on Twin Oaks but knew I wouldn’t be too disappointed with any of the pegs. I had my dip and out came peg 19 on the Match Lake, a peg with some good form but I had pegs 20 and 24 among others to contend with. The main thoughts that I had as I approached my peg were wondering if the carp would venture to my side of the rope that holds the aerator and is tethered to the two islands some 35 yards in front of me.

Easy does it

When I arrived at the peg I made up my mind up to fish the straight lead and the long pole. The water was quite clear and I just thought a long pole line would be better to concentrate the silver fish and hopefully the odd carp. The majority of the carp live around the points of these islands and in the open water around the aerator; due to the water clarity I thought the method would be a mistake today. My thinking was that there was no real need to feed them, other than the odd pellet including the one with my hook attached! For the pole it was the good old half gram Cralusso Capri to a .10 Xedion hook length and a size 20 Milo T213 hook I was going to fish this rig over three balls of ground bait containing casters and a few chopped worms.

At the start I fed my pole line and went out on the straight lead. I obviously was the only one thinking ‘the method’ wasn’t right as thod’s were flying everywhere! It really has become the number one tactic since it was first allowed on this venue last spring. I stuck to my guns pinging the odd 8mm pellet out in the general area of my bait and watched as one by one the anglers in my section and those opposite slowly started to pick up their poles. There was just nothing happening. I think I lasted around 40 minutes before I had the unstoppable urge to follow everyone else onto the pole line. In that time I can honestly say that I never had a touch, not even the odd liner!

Wind machine

Shipping out to 12.5m with double red on the hook and the cold wind suddenly picked up making it difficult to handle the pole as it was sideways on.  How many times does that happen? It’s as if someone is watching and waiting to turn the wind machine on! After a couple of minutes I had a bite and saw a satisfying amount of pink J range elastic shoot out of the pole tip. It was a good fish to start with and after a couple of minutes I saw a massive perch come to the net, it must have been over 2 ½ pound. Back out and a longer wait resulted in one of the new residents to the lake an F1 of around 10oz I had a couple of small skimmers and some tiny roach which was signalling me to re feed but with the wind getting stronger I decided to feed three more balls on the 6m line. It would be much better fishing a shorter pole, at least that was what I was hoping!

Back on the straight lead casting around whilst the ground bait hopefully attracted a few fish onto my new line. In fifteen minutes I did manage a bite but it was a 6oz skimmer that took a fancy to my 8mm pellet!

Good change

No more bites on the straight lead so I was back on the pole and for a couple of hours it was solid! I had a fantastic net of fish including Bream of around 2lb and some more of those big footballers. On a couple of occasions I caught gudgeon at my feet as I dropped the maggot hook bait in the edge before shipping out, I also caught perch doing this when shipping out on a caster! This got me thinking as I had not set an edge rig up as the water was quite clear. I was off my box double quick and soon had a rig for down the edge to fish by the platform. Loose feeding casters I continued on the 6m line.

Duck City

After 20 minutes or so I had succeeded in drawing a pair of ducks onto my edge line and they would just not go away! I had a go anyway and was pleased to catch a VIP of around a pound but those daffy ducks were really causing problems. They were sitting on the platform waiting for me to feed and diving in after the casters! And when they were not doing belly flops they would hang their heads over the edge and sky line the swim! I tried to get rid of them but they kept coming back, they must have been starving! In the end I fed them round to my other side with some pellets and kept them there, mind it cost me a pint of 4mm! It did give my neighbour Andy Gray a giggle!

It was definitely worth it as I managed to get some more of those very important perch and a carp of around 3lb. The last 30 minutes came and I was struggling so it was back on the lead I had been priming the swim all match with the odd pellet and I had two more bites in that time which resulted in a lovely Cornish F1 of around 2lb and a Common of 3lb that I landed with a minute or so to go. It was a fantastic match; I really regretted not having my camera to take a quick snap of the fish. They went 47lb 12oz which unfortunately for me was only good enough for second in section as John Shirley had a level 50lb from peg 24 he had six big old carp to back up his silvers. Dave Hillier was the days winner from Trelawney with 58lb again some big carp that he caught down the edge.

The Barns on Thursday

Thursday came around and I was looking forward to some waggler therapy down at the Barns, the match this week was to be on the prolific Neil’s lake as the weather had gone very cold in fact we had ice round the margins again. It was hoped that the silver fish would provide us with a days sport.

I drew peg 4 which is where I recently won a match from with well over a hundred fish on the waggler so when the penny dropped I was on the same swim I was more than happy. I set up a 1.5gram Cralusso Rocket light to fish towards the far bank but I also set up a pole to fish round 11m just in case.

The match started and I fed some micros on the 11m line and went straight out on double maggot on the waggler, I was expecting a bite immediately but it didn’t happen! Kevin Harmer ‘The Hat Man’ was into a small carp on his method feeder but I still felt confident. But when after 10 minutes I still didn’t have a fish I was getting worried. And so it proved the fish just didn’t seem to be there in any numbers after an hour I had around 5 small Rudd, Kev had a couple of carp and around 10 small fish and Tony to my left was also struggling. I could see Harry Billing on the end peg and he looked to be getting the odd fish but was also not at the races.

The Epicentre

Towards the middle of the lake it was a different matter with three anglers netting fish on a regular basis, it was never going to be one of those high weight affairs and it looked like Wayne ‘Wrong Lake’ Evident and Jason Eccles were the two pace setters and the ones to beat. That’s the way it went with Jason taking the verdict with around 26lb with Wrong Lake a pound or so behind.

Another Draw bag!

Congratulations to Jason he has recently moved to the area and has started off on fire winning three matches. I wasn’t at the first two but he drew and won from peg 14 at the Barns with around 70lb and also Gwinear peg 40. Now, we all welcome and need new anglers in the South West but I have to stress we do not need any more draw bags, we have enough of them! Only joking Jason from the brief glimpse I have had of you fishing you look a class act, welcome on board you will be made more than welcome on our circuit.

Arctic blast

Coming round to the end of the week and it looked like we were not going to have a match as the weather was freezing with ice everywhere. Fortunately we had a milder night on Friday and the match was on. I did the team draw in the penultimate Kernow Match Group winter league and I found myself on peg 5 on Sycamore, Skip McCabe was on peg 8 on Jennies and Andy Partridge was on peg 19 Jennies, not bad or so we thought.

I got down to my peg just as the aerator was turned off; it is situated in the gap between the islands and slightly to my left, I was a little unsure as to how it would effect the fishing but I completely understand the reason it was left on overnight.  The lake became flat calm and there was no fish movement to be seen.

I decided on three methods: The method tight to the island, a waggler and for that I chose a Cralusso 7 gram Valence which was perfect for getting tight to the island around 50 yards away and the pole. This was a difficult match as 30 minutes before the start a freezing wind got up and was coming straight through the gap in the island at me it was clear that it was going to be hard to present the waggler and the pole for that matter.

Starting on the waggler I was hoping for a quick carp in fact we all had the same idea some using the method but there was nothing doing. Harry Billing on the end peg 1 was first to reach for the pole. He had at that time flat calm water and he told me later he had loads of fish fizzing over his ground bait. He started off with a roach every put in. Andy Dare to my right and I didn’t want to get too far behind him so we followed the leader. Andy caught albeit slower than Harry but it took awhile for me to get bites and they seemed much smaller!

After two hours it was getting colder and the rest of the match was a struggle and we all stopped catching. The damage had been done in that opening hour. It really was a day of the lost perch as everybody seemed to hook and loose some big old footballers, Andy next to me must have lost six which is very frustrating as they would have added another 8 or 9lb to his tally.

An Exceedingly nice bag of roach.

Only Neil Kippax known affectionately as Mr Kipling on the other end peg could trouble Harry and towards the end was catching really well he had enjoyed a purple patch with an hour to go. The fish appeared to be moving towards the middle of the lake in the last moments as Tony Williams to my left started to get a few but it was all too late. Harry won the section with around 17lb from Mr Kipling on 14lb and I was well down with 7lb 8oz. At least my team mates fared a little better coming second and third in section which dragged us up to third place on the day.

Individual League

Sunday was the latest round of the individual league and it was a split venue match with Gwinear and White Acres. The split was 15 pegs at Gwinear and the rest at White Acres. Unfortunately only 20 anglers turned up to fish so there was only 5 pegs at White Acres. It really looks like we have more lovers than anglers in the SW; it was Valentines Day I guess they all stayed in looking after their nearest and dearest.

Phase one

I had my dip and pulled out peg 6 on phase one at Gwinear, now I have to say that this is not my favourite lake on the complex,  even though I have had a couple of good weights on it. I also know that peg six is not a bad peg and one that is capable of winning so I went full of confidence.

The peg is an end peg with the edge of the lake around five metres to the left. I set up various pole rigs as I felt that I could reach everywhere I wanted to fish with 16m of pole. I had Skip McCabe practically opposite me and I guess he was only 35m away. I hoped the fishing was going to be as good as the banter as comments were flying around everywhere! I guess because of the weather we all expected a grueller.

The Plan

I set various rigs up to fish long on the deck and half depth plus rigs to fish long against the bank to my left. I also set a rig for fishing into the corner on my top three, it is very shallow there but I know that Andy Dare regularly feeds the fish with micros by throwing bait around the edges so the idea was to emulate him and throw a couple of handfuls into the corner and hope it coloured up with feeding fish during the match. I also had a rig to fish at 6m to my right where I was going to loose feed casters hoping for some bream, they hadn’t been showing lately so I wanted to try something different from the rest to try and tempt them. I considered them both throwaway lines – I just hoped they worked!

Lost points

Well to cut along story short nothing worked for me! I had two very small Tench on the long pole, I lost a big bream on the 6m line ad nothing came into my corner trap! I must admit that well before this match finished I was wishing I had joined the lovers and stayed at home basking in the brownie points I could have accumulated!

With an hour to go I got off my butt and set up a feeder rod and cast as far as I dare to my right and left it whilst I packed up! With about 10 minutes to go I had a pull round and landed a four pound carp which firmly left me in last place in the section! Perhaps I should have just set up one rod today….It was a hard match with little caught in fact my mate Andy Partridge only had one carp on the other end peg but his was an 8 pounder. Skip fished a blinder to win the section from opposite me in the shallower water with 20lb comprising of a few skimmers and four carp.Tales of Dough or Tales

Popularity: 1% [?]