Bait Tech Festival 2009

This was my 3rd Festival at Whiteacres and I only ever do the first one of the year.

The previous 2 years have seen me finish 126th and 108th, however during this time I have been on a very steep learning curve regarding the lakes and was determined to break into the top 100 this year. A more ambitious aim was to come high enough to automatically qualify for the Preston Festival which takes place in October.

Day 1 - Jennys / Python

My preffered option was Python as I had fished this lake before, however Jennys was completely new to me.
I drew Jennys 13 and upon arrival at my peg it was blowing an absolute howler ! Peg 11 to my left is the narrowest peg on the lake and the island is reachable at 16 mtrs. Peg 13 is approx 22 mtrs wide whilst peg 15 to my right is to the point of an island and an aereator which are both about 30 mtrs away. The rest of my 9 peg section was mainly open water or longer chucks too islands.
Having never fished the lake before, the basic information was sought and it was going to be feeder to the island for F1's and carp, and pole short (5 - 7 mtrs dependant on the shelf) for mainly tench or anything that swims !
The main thing I have learnt at Whiteacres over my 2 previous festivals is to keep bait going in on the feeder line so there is some bait there for when they turn up. This is a risky strategy as sometimes they may not ! I spent the first hour alternating between the meat and groundbait feeder for 2 small F1's. The guy on peg 11 to my left was blanking and Mark Malin to my right had approx 10 F1's chucking to the point of the island and the aereator. I could not see the rest of my section so had a decision to make as I felt the fish were in the open water of Jennys rather than the relative narrowness of the peg that I was on.
The feeder rod was thrown behind me and my attention would now be to fish the pole and catch anything that swimss ! I fished 2 lines at 7 mtrs, one with meat and one with worm and caster, and for the remainder of the match I picked up odd tench, F1's, skimmers and roach - all mainly caught on the worm line. The guy to my left had switched to the bomb and caught 4 big carp and Mark Malin had continued to catch F1's from the aereator and had some tench on the pole line late on. As soon as ther hooter went I wandered down the section to see who had caught and the way people were talking it was down to me and the guy on my left for last and second to last in the section.
I packed away and then waited for the scales as they had to weigh in Python first. When the scales arrived they started at the far end of the section and it transpires that people had caught less than what they thought. Ricky Teale and another guy had 40lb+ with the others having between 15 and 25lb. Mark Malin dropped 40lb+ on the scales and I knew I had chance of 4th insection. I weighed 28lb 7oz and just hoped that he guy on 11 hadn't beat me. His 4 big carp went 27lb 11oz and I was more than happy with 6 points as I thought 1 or 2 pts was on the card after I had walked the section after the match.
The best weight off peg 13 for the rest of the week was 35lb.

Day 2 - Twin Oaks / Trelawney

Having looked at the previous days results, you needed an end peg on Trelawney for good section points or pegs 12, 14, 16, 18 on Twin Oaks for the chance of a lake win.
I drew Twin Oaks 10 which was not good as I would struggle to beat the anglers to my right and in reality the best I could hope for was to beat the 4 anglers to my left and get 5 points.
For company, I had Steven Barraclough on peg 12 and to his right on peg 14, Mark Malin had drew out of his skin again !
On Twin Oaks there is a large undercut on the far bank where the carp reside and you have to chuck within inches of the far bank or you will struggle to get a bite. The first hour was a struggle and I had 3 F1's whereas the 4 pegs to my right were all catching carp and it was obvious that the wind was still holding the fish down at this end of the lake. Everyone to my left was struggling so I decided to come in on the 5 mtr pole line (which is another standard catching area on this lake). I began to catch odd skimmers between 12oz and 2lb and stuck at this for a while to try and build enough weight to produce a gap between myself and the anglers to my left incase they started to catch carp late. Over the next hour I put around 20lb of skimmers in the net but then bites started to really slow. The pegs to my right were still catching well and Ricky Teale on Peg 6 was catching odd carp on the meat feeder.
With about 2 hours to go, Steven and Mark both came in on the 5 mtr line and prosceeded to catch carp ! This was really frustrating as I had only caught skimmers on this line. Their decision to fish the pole forced my hand and I decided to stick it out on the feeder for the final 2 hours and try to draw some carp up from my right as they were no longer fishing the feeder. I began to pick up odd carp, however the final 40 miutes was frantic as every time I chucked in I had a fish on before my rod touched the rod rest ! I tightened the clutch and bullied carp in like never before but it was too little too late as the all in sounded (about 30 mins too early as far as I was concerned !) I was confidentt of beating all to my left and as the scales arrived, the best weight was Ricky Teale with 62lb. I put 80lb on the scales and the pegs to my right weighed as follows - Peg 12 - 120lb, Peg 14 (Mark 'Drawbag' Malin) - 138lb, Peg 16 - 112 lb, Peg 18 - 96lb.
5th in section gave me 5pts and in reality this was probably the best result I was ever going to get from this peg on the day.
It was predicted that later in the week the carp would move out from the far side of the lake to settle in the middle. Indeed this happened the very next day and for the remainder of the week you needed to be on pegs 6, 8 and you've guessed it - 10 !

Day 3 - Porth

I have to admit that, whilst not everyones cup of tea, I really enjoy Porth.
Looking at the first 2 days results, 6-8lb would give you good section points and I drew peg 89 which is an end peg on the far side of the reservoir. The previous day it had 12lb odd but only 4th in the section as there had been odd bigger bream caught on the earlier pegs of the section (including the 29lb weight).
There are some very uncomfortable pegs on Porth, however upon arrival I found that I could get my Space Station set up about 2 yards in the water from the bank and that the bottom was fairly solid. I set up a rod for the bream at 24 turns which would be a fishmeal based groundbait for the feeder and worm hookbait. Another rod was set up at 16 turns for the smaller palm sized skimmers and roach. Groundbait for this was more silverfish based and hookbait would be red maggot. It was windy so the pole was set up to 11 mtrs only and this was my banker line to catch small skimmers, roach and perch.
You normally get indication immediately on the short feeder line from the small roach and skimmers, however it turned out to be a real struggle and to make thigs worse I could only see the guy to my right (who was also struggling) so could not see what was happening in the rest of the section. I chucked the heavier feeder for about 45 minutes in the hope of a couple of bigger bream but there was no indications on that either.
My only hope was to get some silvers on the 11 mtr pole line and whilst picking up odd 1 oz roach and perch I was going nowhere fast !
With an hour left, and more in desperation than hope, I cupped in 2 big cup fulls of chopped worm at 4 mtrs. I grabbed a rig from my box and plumbed up, dropped in, and immediately came back with a 2 oz perch. The last hour was frantic and I was catching 1 - 2oz perch as quickly as I could and ended up with an estimated 60 of them.
I was first to weigh and put 7lb 8 oz on the scales and had really got out of jail with those perch. All I had to hope now was that noboby in my section had connected with a proper bream or two. The next 2 pegs weighed in 5 and 6lb respectivelly but the next bloke had a big bream and some bits for 12lb. There was one more big bream caucght in my section which poushed me into 3rd but to be honest I would've taken that at the start of the match. The 12 lb weight near to me actually framed on the lake so the guy who came 2nd and beat me by 9oz got the section money by default.
So, 7 points today and a look at the full list in the club that night put me in 64th place out of 180 and in a good position to get my best festival result.

Day 4 - Bolingey

Bolingey is very peggy, however the organisers get around this by having 'split' sections. To get a lake win you really need a peg in the 'big hit' section where most of the 9 pegs are capable of winning the lake. The downside of this is that you could have a very good weight only to come half way in your section.
I drew peg 44 which is not in the good section and therefore not in with a chance of main lake money. During the week, the section I was in was won from a different peg every day and the day previous, peg 44 had come second. Peg 45 to my left is a flyer and therefore not in my section so I knew I would have to try and ignore him if he started bagging ! For company, I had Grant Albutt (a £1 side bet was made) to my right and former World Champion Tommy Pickering to his right so i was certainly up against it today !
Mark 'drawbag' Malin was directly behind me on peg 47. He was not in my section but was at on a peg that had won that particular section for the last 2 days !
I set up today - a rod for fishing PVA bag incase it was hard, 2 pole lines at 13 mtrs, short margins left and right, and the obligatory 5 mtr line. The wind had died down slightly today but was still strong enough to make fishing the 13 mtr pole uncomfortable, however this was how I started but, along with the rest of the section struggled. The one exception was the guy on the end peg on the opposite bank who had approx 5 carp in the first hour.
The PVA bag was chucked around the peg to try and locate a fish but this also proved fruitless and after 2 biteless hours I was forced to have a look in the margins. I did not have so much as a liner down the edge so looked on the 5 mtr line where I had been throwing 6 cubes of meat every 2-3 minutes. Again this produced nothing and I was looking at a major disaster when suddenly a carp topped in front of peg 45. I hastily catapulted 2 pouchfulls of meat out at 16 mtrs and grabbed a shallow rig (2 1/2 foot deep) from my box (I hadn't set this up initially because of the wind). I shipped out to 16 mtrs and immediately the 12 latex ripped from my pole and 1 6lb carp was safely in the net. 3 more carp in the next 20 minutes followed and suddenly I had an estimated 25lb in the net. Then disaster - the sun came out ! The carp dissapeared and I could not get a bite, however I had already decided that the section was fishing poor enough to warrant sticking with this method for the remaining hour of match. 4 more carp followed including a nice double figure mirror and at the hooter I knew the section would be tight.
I was the last one in the section to weigh and the top weight before me was 48lb. My 8 carp went 52lb and not only had I won the section for a maximum 9 points and a pick up, I had also took a quid of Grant Albutt and the scalp of Tommy Pickering - I was very pleased with myself.

Looking at the results in the club that night I was sat on 27 points and 34th place overall out of 180 anglers. If I had a section win on the last day enabling me to drop my worst result (the 5pts on Twin Oaks), I could get 31 points and an outside chance of sneaking into the top 20.

Day 5 - Pollawyn

Pollawyn is probably the lake where the drawbag determines your points ! At the start of the week the carp were still in the arms of the lake, however as the week progressed they had gradually made their way out of the arms making a bee line for the famous High Bank section - this was the place to draw.
Out came Peg 10 - I was not happy ! It had done nothing all week and come 8th in the section the previous day. The dominant peg in the section was Peg 13 (point of the island) and Peg 9 to my left is on the end of the lake and has a very inviting margin swim where some resident carp live. It fished extremely hard and after searching for carp and big skimmers gor the first 3 hours of the match and catching nothing, I got one of my Porth tops out armed with 3 latex and caught 10lb 9oz of roach on my top 3 !
At the weigh in the carp had moved out of Peg 13 and the guy there had 6lb odd. The guy to my right had 11lb of skimmers and the guy to my left on peg 9 fished long to his left down the end of the lake marginn for 5 hours to win the section with 44lb.
I ended up 5th in the section and with 14lb coming 3rd I knew that if I had gone for those roach earlier then I could have got 7 pts instead of 5 pts.

A big congratulations to fellow Swad lad Kelvin Acton who drew on Peg 28 on the High Bank section and went on to win the lake with 142lb - not only his highest ever match weight but also his first lake win in a festival (and Callum Dicks was also 2 pegs away). Kelvin was reallly chuffed - well done mate.

The results

Points for the week were 6, 5, 7, 9 & 5 so dropping one of the 5's as my worst result I ended up with a 27 point total. Looking at the final leader board this put me in 53rd overall which was a vast improvement from my last 2 festivals.
The top 50 get an automatic invite tio the Preston festival in October where the top 24 qualify for the Parkdean Final on the Saturday, however with a few of last year finalist fishing this week this number get increased as they already get an automatic invite. This effectively means I have qualified for the Preston Festival and the caravan is already booked and deposit paid for !

Finally a big word of thanks to Clint and his team for the excellent organisation of the festival - it is amazing how efficient they are at getting the results out.

Snooty