White Acres Gold Residents Match.

As I was on a weeks holiday last week at White Acres in Cornwall, I decided on having a go in the Monday open match that they hold weekly at the fishery, the match was to be held on the Twin Oaks and Acorn lakes, with around 35 anglers competing a draw on the low numbered lake would be preffered with the epicentre being 14 to 18!

At the draw though, peg 9 greeted me, mid way along the lake, which wasn't really ideal but felt it would be worth a few fish, and a good peg in the section, although end peg 2 can spoil the party sometimes especially with the wind blowing down there, as it was today. The weather on this particular match was absolutely horrendous (Accounting for lack of Photos for this post!) with a strong wind blowing down the lake and rain from start to finish.  My attack for this match would be very simple to a to the point, as this peg wasn't the best I'd need to go positive in an effort to undo the power of the pegs further up! This would involve fishing a method feeder tight to the far bank, a short pole line with meat at 5 metres, and down the edge to my right, a do or die approach really but I felt the peg could take it. The bait's I took for todays match were some 2mm Premium Pellets for moulding around the feeder, some 6 and 8mm's for banding on the hook, some red and white boilies as a change bait and three pints of meat. I also took two kilos of N-Tice groundbait for feeding down the edge a couple of hours into the match in the hope of a run of big fish in the later stages.

The rigs were as easy as the approach! The rod for fishing the feeder was a Parabolix 10ft Bomb teamed with a ACS 4000 reel, loaded up with 6lb line, I selected a 30g Inline Method - heavy methods are a must for fishing to far banks as they hold on the slope far better - a 4 inch hooklength of 0.22 to a size 14 hook and a hair rigged pellet band. The short pole line for fishing at 5m with meat was a 4x16 SD4 float, as there was quite a lot of tow on the lake, this was a no-nonsense .19 to .17 rig and a 14 B911, ideal for an 8mm piece of meat. My edge rig was plumbed up in 15 inches of water slightly out from the bank to my right, and a 4x10 IS3 float is perfect for this style of fishing, having a nice thick bristle which makes distinguishing liners from propper bites far easier, this was .19 straight through, to a strong size 14 hook, again for fishing meat on the hook.

Starting the match, I fed some bait on the 5m line and loaded up the method feeder with pellets with a banded 8mm on the hook, this was cast out to the clip very tight to the far bank grass, you have to be so close to the far bank on this lake to catch the fish, believe it or not 4 or 5 inches can make a massive difference between catching 100lb or 30lb some days! First cast the rod went round and to my dissapointment the fish came off on the way in, which was a bit dissapointing, next cast however I managed to open my account with a nice carp of around 4lb, one of these every cast and I'd be well in! The first hour yielded around 20lb for me, and it was steady-ish! After the first hour it would be a case of regular casting across and picking up the pole pot every 20minutes to build that 5m line for later. A few more fish followed but a blank 20 minute spell prompted me to give it a rest and pick up the pole rig, baiting up with meat I shipped it out to 5m, dropped in and immediately it bolted under, a great sign, unfortunately though the fish was foul hooked and took a while to get in, but at around 6lb it was worth the struggle, another followed, also foulhooked then nothing, it definately wasn't ready yet so it was back on the feeder for a couple more! With two hours to go, I fed my margin line for the first time with 5 big pots of GB, this showed no signs of fish for around 10 mins, then they turned up, tails everywhere! Dropping in, the float buried and the first of 5 proper fish were put into the keepnet, after these I refed with more GB, but unbelievably no more fish came from this line, and only a few more from the short line before the end of the match. All in all it had been a decent match from an average area of the lake but as predicted the pegs at the top end of the lake produced the goods with a winning 156lb from peg 15. My final weight of 110lb was just beaten into 2nd in the section by the end peg 2 with 115lb, a bit annoying as I had a couple come off but thats fishing I guess and good practise for the forthcoming autumn festivals!

Tight Lines

Tony Curd