What Difference A Week Makes!

Tuesday saw us travel to Mawgan Porth for the first of another two days at the venue. I have to say the drive to this picturesque little fishery has to be one of the nicest in the UK especially if you travel around the coast route. It is absolutely stunning. I have to really concentrate on the road as the scenery takes your breath away. In fact on my very first trip here some years ago I nearly went straight on at a hairpin bend!

May is the busiest month for visiting match anglers in Cornwall, the tourist season really takes off with the bank holiday weekend at the end of the month and with this the accommodation prices go up and the match anglers go down! We will have to wait until September for sell out matches again, it is really amazing the diffrence in match turnouts.

When we arrived for the draw Janet had words with me! The comment about Bernie in my last effort was not true, he is an adopted friend and not dad, sorry to all concerned! Janet read out the rules and went on to explain that the golden pegs contained 200 and 100 pound respectively which got us all excited! She then explained that as there were only 9 anglers fishing today we couldn’t fish for it! Nice one Janet, she has a rule that states 10 anglers must be present for the GP and quite rightly she will not be budged on this. We did try to rope a pleasure angler in but he was having none of it.
I had my dip and out came peg 31 a peg that Harry won from last Friday so I was reasonably confident, even though it didn’t produce quite as well on the Saturday match.

I had with me three pints of maggots and some fishery pellets that were purchased on site. I have to say that I think they are reasonably priced. For a bag containing 4lb she charges 4 quid, now that is a damn site cheaper than a lot of fishery own pellets. I mention this as I read on another internet site that she charges 4 quid for a bag, insinuating that they are extortionate, which they are not. Back to the fishing! I wanted to use maggot as that had been the bait doing a lot of damage recently so that is what I based my attack on. The edge peg looked really good to my right and to frame that is where I needed to catch.

I set up my normal rigs on short poles of 0.2 Cralusso Capri’s on 0.18 line direct to a 16’s PR28 to fish close in and also about a metre out in about 3’ of water I was ready for the off in plenty of time. I had duplicates of all my rigs laid out to hand. I needed my wits about me as Harry had drawn peg 18 an area that I really fancied, Andy Partridge was on peg 28 a very consistent peg and the end peg to boot.

The whistle went and dropped in down the edge expecting a bite immediately but it didn’t come! More feed and still nothing. Opposite me on peg 46 the angler was getting one a chuck only small but man were they coming quick! I could also see Harry on 18 and he was into fish and judging by the amount of elastic coming out of his pole he was getting amongst the bigger samples. Listening to the chatter I could tell that I was at least fourth, and that was only the anglers that I could see! I had a change around and went onto my deeper rig which produced about a dozen fish before it slowed. Back to the edge, two fish and then nowt! In the end I settled for a new line midway between the edge and the deeper line and started getting a few but it was a chase that I knew I wasn’t going to win. I did get them late on next to the bank but was always behind.

The results show that Harry won the match by a country mile with 221lb followed by Andy Partridge with 160lb, peg 46 had 154lb and I had 135lb for fourth place. This is really is an amazing fishery.  I was however a little disappointed with my days fishing and I have had 135lb which is in excess of 100 fish., I should get a life and get real.  I cannot wait until I fish  MP when the lake is on song!

Wednesday saw a slightly better turnout with a dozen fishing so the Golden Peg was in! Harry promptly drew peg 18 again, which made me smile with the thought if he won today he would have to draw 18 three consecutive times to win the extra GP money. I know that he is capable of that as I have seen him draw the same peg on four occasions at Gwinear.

I drew peg 36 and have to say I was a little disappointed with my draw as I knew that venue regular Andy Thomas drew it yesterday and struggled, when I say struggled he had a ton! The peg on its day can be a flyer as it has a great edge and plenty of room.  I have mentioned before fish have fins, so I was hoping they had used them and swam into my peg! It didn’t take long to set up the same rigs as yesterday, but this time I was going for the edge and the midpoint swim hoping I had learnt from yesterday.

Opposite me on peg 42 I had Simon Poynter who is on the verge of progressing from venue expert to venue master! His results have been very impressive in recent weeks with numerous double hundreds some towards 280lb mark! He was however not that happy with his draw, I would just like to remind him that he offered to swop it with me after he drew! Not that he would have been allowed to do that and to be fair if we could, I wouldn’t! To my left I had Gordon Mears a very good angler that fishes a lot with Simon so I knew he would be clued up on the methods so a good match was the prospect.

The match started and I baited with two red maggots and fed some to my right hand swim and waited for the float to signal the start of some hectic sport. The trouble was it was Simons float that was sending out the signals, mine was stationary! It took quite a few minutes to get my first bite and then it was slow. I could see that Gordon to my left was not catching much as well. Simon was looking to catch his target of 40 fish per hour!

Broken curse

I could just see Harry’s pole when he landed a fish and could tell that he hadn’t suffered the curse of following Harry. It seems to me that everyone who draws the peg after Harry has fished it, seems to struggle as he normally doesn’t leave many uncaught fish in the swim! I could tell by the amount of latex coming out of his pole it was just a myth and he was sacking again.

Slippery customers

I was now starting to put a few fish together but knew it was just not fast enough to catch up but you have to try. I have never known carp be as slippery as the one in these pools, it led me to say that they must have been bred with tench as they are like bars of soap when you try to hold them. Simon joined in the conversation adding that it was a good job they had fins!?! The chap next to Simon and I had to point out to him that if they didn’t we wouldn’t be fishing! We were laughing with him so much he took another 10 fish lead!

The fish are hooked and landed so quickly that when they are in the landing net they have not given up fighting, you have to get the pectoral fins between your fingers to help keep them still. I knew what Simon meant but that just didn’t make for a good story!

The moment of truth arrived for Simon in the form of Janet and the scales and after several weighs 238lb was announced. Simon reliably informed us that he had caught 278 carp! By my calculations that is around 55 carp per hour! Some going and very well done. The next time you want to swop a peg I might just take you up on that! It was a close run affair as Harry had just recorded his second double ton in two days with 219lb! Another fantastic catch. On peg 16 the chap recorded 154lb and I crept in fourth with 125lb followed closely by Gordon with115lb fantastic weights from a great little fishery. As I drove away from the venue I was just left with the the thought of ‘I must try harder!’