The first weekend of my Easter holidays saw me down in Newquay for the annual Drennan Team England junior festival. It had been run for the previous three years and this was my fourth and final year to fish it. In the three previous years I’d never been outside of the top ten; coming seventh twice and fifth once. As one of the oldest and most experienced anglers their this year I saw it as my chance to shine. Unlike previous years I hadn’t had a chance to practice, even though I travelled down on the Friday with one of my fellow Mosella Farnborough team mates Harry Marsh. We arrived around lunch time and I made a point of going straight to the tackle shop to find out what was what and what lakes we were on. I was pleased to find out that we were on Trelawney and Jenny’s like all the other years.
These are two of my favourite lakes on the complex and I would be able to find plenty out about Jenny’s from the Dorking lads on the festival the week before as Jenny’s had been used. I found out that they had been catching massive weights of Roach at around four metres with the odd pegs throwing a big weight of carp caught shallow on meat. We were allowed pellets on our match, so I decided if I was on Jenny’s I would fish the meat feeder at the start and try to catch an odd F1 or carp and would then switch to a caster line at four metres to catch Roach. I was fairly confident in these methods as caster shallow for roach is one of my favourites and the meat feeder was a method I had caught on last year so I felt I knew what I was doing. I also pumped a few pellets if it was hard and I needed to catch silver fish like skimmers and crucians.
For Trelawney I had already settled on fishing a meat feeder, corn and meat down the edge and corn at six metres. I would also set up a long line as a major back up in case I was desperate. So that was my basic plan of attack sorted so up to the club!! After chatting with a few Dorking lads such as Michael Saunders, Ben Leach and Gary Hamilton I decided that my basic plan of attack was pretty much ok. After teaching fellow England team mate Matt Godfrey how to play pool I went off to bed!!
The Draw!
Drawing is not normally one of my specialities, I normally tend to draw the wrong pegs on the wrong days, however I felt my last major flier had been down here at White Acres last year, so I was hoping lady luck was on my side again, I drew peg one on Trelawney in the junior festival and won the match. However this year I drew peg 24 which is one out of the bay, and as many people will tell you it is a bit of a flier. Being one of the last to my peg I noticed that the bay peg was empty and with Matt Godfrey sitting with me we decided that I had a fairly good chance of winning my section, however I knew the other end-pegs would be good. There were plenty of fish topping so I decided to fish the same as I said above but I also set up a pellet waggler just incase the wind dropped.
I started off on the meat feeder taking six quick fish, after the first hour I had ten and was easily winning my section. The middle two hours of the match were rather slow and I only managed to snare a couple more. However the last hour picked up and I managed a further three carp on the feeder and a quick one on the waggler. I had begun to lose feed pellets and that brought the fish back. I ended up with 14 fish for 56lb winning my section by a clear 6lb. This boosted my confidence for the next day and I was certainly well up for it!! The next day at the draw I was pleasantly surprised to draw peg nine, the peg which had won its section the day before. It was also Connor Barlow a good friend of mine from the England junior side who had been on it. He caught loose feeding 8mm pellets and caught on a drilled pellet on the bomb. As it was a different day today and the wind had picked up I opted to mainly fish the meat feeder to the point of the island opposite. This is because it’s a method I have great confidence in and its one I thoroughly enjoy fishing and also mainly because the Van Den Eynde festival fished the week before weren’t allowed pellets so the meat feeder had thrown up some weights during that week.
I chose to fish a pole line at thirteen metres where I would feed wetted down micro pellets in small balls. I would also have a back up line at four metres where I would loose feed chopped worm and caster. The match started poorly for me as I had one fish in the first hour, a young fellow Farnborough lad two pegs up had been catching well on the bomb with pellets and had at least 20 lb. So I changed methods and started loose feeding 8mm pellets to the island where I would fish a bomb and hair rig a pellet. First chuck brought a small stocky and second cast I hooked into something a bit bigger, getting it to the net I could see it was around 6lb at least; reaching to net it the fish took a last dive breaking my 0.13mm Preston Powerline hooklength. I re-tied a hooklength this time on 0.15mm Preston Powerline to a size 16 PR36 with a band on the hair rig to pull through the pellet. Casting back out didn’t see another fish so I had a look on the pole.
I fished 0.11mm Powerline straight through to a Preston Innovations Chianti in the 4×12 size, I fished this straight through to a 18 PR21. I had a Crucian a Tench and a few skimmers in as many chucks and then the line died. I topped up with a small ball of micro pellets again, however I had decided that I was too far behind to be catching silver fish. I decided to stick on the feeder for the last two hours. By regularly feeding 8mm pellets around five at a time tight to the bush against the island I was regularly catching stockies and F1’s. By the start of the last hour I had around 11 fish on the bomb and about 4lb of Roach and Rudd I caught on the short line, just so that I could rest the bomb line. As the last hour started I was struggling for a touch on the tip and I chucked the bomb in a totally different place and managed to snare a mug stockie.
After that I had no more fish their so I decided to try punching big pieces of meat and in the last half hour I managed to catch 3 more carp in my original spot against the bush.
The Weigh In!!
When the weigh in came I was first to weigh and I was astonished to bump 42lb on the scales, I knew it was going to be close as the lad two pegs up had caught and peg 1 had caught some lumps down the edge. The lad two pegs up weighed 30lb after having a last bad hour and the kid on the end had 40lb. Phewwwww I thought.
My victory had been sealed at last and as everyone congratulated me I reluctantly packed my gear away and phoned home. My Mum was over the moon and my Nan was there as well as my Granddad so they were both really pleased. But most of all my Dad was over the moon for me, it had taken me four tries to win this festival and I wish he had been there to see it. I want to thank everyone who helped me along the way and say congratulations to Luke Hancock who won the
Preston Innovations sponsored intermediate festival. But most of all I want to say a massive thanks to my Dad Adrian who funded the trip and helped me with methods and what to do. So thanks everyone and roll on the intermediates next year I say…
Nice one Jake, well put together and a good read…Congratulations on the result.
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Tom
