White Acres - Day 5, Pollawyn Match Lake

The final round saw me down to fish Pollawyn, the original match lake, it has loads of fish in it with carp being the main weight builders in the results, they run to over 20lb so sensible kit is needed. There are also plenty of skimmers, roach, perch and F1's, plus a few barbel to spice things up.

The half past nine draw saw me pull peg 45, a good peg if the wind wasn't awkward, it had won the section on Thursday with 90lb-ish.

Once I found my peg (the pegging is kind of random!!), I set about sorting my kit.

Peg 45, Pollawyn Lake

 



I didn't want to fish the method, or any tip fishing for this match, so I set up a small pellt waggler to fish over at 17m, 4 pole rigs were made too.
The 1st pole rig was to swing a bait across to the reeds, should the wind allow, this was for banded pellet (6 and 8mm). The second rig would do two lines at 11m, one for meat and the other for chopped worm and caster. The 3rd rig would be for tight against the bank in 2.5ft of water, but this only gave me a 1oz perch so no more on that. The 4th rig was for topkit length in the 10 o'clock direction for fishing worm and caster mush over bits of groundbait.

The whistle blew and I potted bits and bobs into their swims, I started in the topkit and put a pound of bits in the net. I  then shipped to 16m and swung my bait (as best I can) at the far bank, this resulted in a 4lb carp straight away, I followed this up with a F1 of 2lb and then roach of 6oz.
Half an hour into the match and I hooked a carp which tore through a reed bed to my left on the far bank, but despite it's attempts to get rid of me, I somehow managed to free it from a snag (tree roots full of pole floats...drifted off in the wind) and the carp managed to find it's way to my keepnet.

A few F1's and skimmers followed and by the 90 minute stage I was doing ok against the few pegs in my section that I could see.
Elsewhere, Keiron Rich and the other anglers with open water in front of them were catching well on the pellet wag and lead/method. Some lumpy fish were netted by them.
The angler to my left on peg 47 had landed a few carp by long lining to the island.

By the 3rd hour the wind had got up and the fish were well in the reeds and I was only picking up the odd one, the angler next door had been fishing for silvers and was putting a nice net together, I managed to put a few pound of these in the net but I wasn't getting the quality he was.
A look on the meat line gave me 2 nice skimmers of a pound each, but the 11m worm line never gave me a bite .

The last 2 hour were generally spent struggling with 16m of pole and a brisk side wind. I managed the odd F1, but didn't do great.
The all out was called and I began to pack up, soon the scales were at my peg and I had clicked 36lb, so probably had 40lb, but it grew into 46lb+.
The lad on peg 47 had put plenty of silvers in his net, I told him he'd got 42lb, he actually weighed 48lb+. There was a 55lb weight, but that was it  in my section pegs, so 3rd in section wasn't a bad end to the week.
Elsewhere on the lake there were plenty of 100lb weights and I was inpressed by the lake.

I headed back to the caravan and loaded the car before heading home.

I did learn loads from my week there and will definitely help my angling, the F1 fishing, the method feeder fishing and the fact that knowledge of the lakes/pegs is really important, but the draw is crucial.

I managed my top 100 target, I finished 99th and had over 185lb of fish over the week, I am looking forward to the next one for sure.

Until next time, take care.
Lee

P.S, today (saturday) saw me fish the Viaduct Fishomania qualifier, I drew peg one on Spring lake, not a bad draw, but I was hemmed in somewhat, and all I could muster was 2 carp around 8lb each and around 15lb of mostly skimmers (which look to be getting ready to spawn). I have another qualifier in  a few weeks at Larford Lakes (I haven't seen it, so could be fun).