White Acres Thursday Rover Match

The 2nd match of my recent week at White Acres was the 'Rover' a good fun match, and not taken too seriously, although the want to win is always quietly there! The first draw of the morning is to determine what order you can select a peg from the lake map's, true to form I went into the bag and pulled out No.55 out of 95 tickets in the bag, in my opinion this is the worst section of the draw to be in, as if you're first you can choose an out and out flyer, but if you draw in the middle once the flyers are gone, you're looking for room, and this is only really possible if you're last in the draw if you get the drift!?

Anyway, after hearing all the happy people heading to dream draws I headed upto the board to see what I could get my hands on, to be fair there were a few half decent pegs still available and I opted for peg 18 on the High Bank of Pollawyn, I chose this not only as it has potential to win on the right day but also so I could get a little practise in for the festivals that are coming up! My approach to the day was going to be very straight forward, I'd like to catch on the waggler if possible after a start on the pellet feeder tight to the island, and maybe dropping the bomb over the top of the waggler line, and feed a 5m line for the last 90 minutes, to hopefully catch a few weight boosting lumps!

The waggler set up was as simple as it gets, my trusty 11ft Parabolix Pellet Waggler rod, which is definately the best waggler rod of this style I have ever picked up, pure class. This was a 4lb main line down to a 0.17mm hook length and a 16 hook, the float was a 4g straight loaded waggler, for fishing between two foot and six foot deep, these style floats definately have the edge over the short stumpy floats when fishing deeper, and add a bit of finesse to an otherwise crude method. The bomb and Pellet feeder rods were both set up on 10ft Parabolix Bomb rods and 4000 ACS reels loaded with 6lb main line, perfect for the range I would be fishing on this match. The 5m rig was a 4x16 SD4 which was ideal for the 7ft deep swim .19mm straight through to a 14 hook, plumbed dead depth. Bait wise, again straight forward 2mm Bait-Tech Premiums for filling the feeder, a few pints of 8mms for the waggler, 3 pints of meat and some 8mm method boilies as change bait should I need them.

Starting the match, I filled the 30g pellet feeder with soaked 2mms with an 8mm on the band, and cast to the island hoping it would go round immediately, unfortunately this wasn't the case and within half hour I was on the waggler line biteless! I honestly thought I'd be off to a decent start from this peg and was suprised at the lack of fish coming out all along the bank, after a while though the float dissapeared shortly after casting in and my first fish of the day, an F1 of nearly 2lb went in the net, another followed the next cast, then a roach then absolutely nothing, an hour and half in with 5lb in the net and I'm beginning to wonder why I chose to fish the peg in the first place! With nothing to lose I picked up the Pellet Feeder rod and decided that it was my best chance of picking up a few resident fish that live close to the island, casting in, it wasn't long before I was making a grab for the rod as carp number 1 slipped up, this occured on the next 5 casts too and a few had obviously showed up! As soon as they came they had gone again and it turned into one of those days where you'd need to nick a fish from a line and keep changing to build a weight, the odd bite on the waggler and pellet feeder kept me ticking over, and by keeping my 5m line well fed I'd give myself the best chance of catching a weight late too. With an hour to go, I went onto the 5m line and immediately had one of those absolutely blistering digs on the float which you only get at 5 metres! A nice fish of 8lb was a very welcome addition to my net, and 3 more and 4 barbel were extracted before the final whistle. At the scales my two nets weighed 103lb 10oz, a bit more than I thought I had, and some of the flyers had failed to produce so I was lucky to take 5th in the match and win some pennys for my efforts, all in all a hard day really and if I'd of stuck to my guns on one or two methods I definately wouldn't of even made it to 50lb!

Tight Lines

Tony Curd