White Acres Dynamite Baits fest 2014, part one.

This week has seen me and my matey James Withers heading off in search of fish at the White Acres Dynamite Baits festival.
It would be our first festival of this type,  and the first time i had fished the lakes.

A top 100 finish would be a massive achievement really and would be my aim for the week.

The previous week had seen the Bait Tech festival,  won by Steve Ringer.  Local angler (to Somerset) Dan White had come third with some decent angling. 

Anyways,  Saturday arrived and after work we loaded Mr Withers' van and made the uneventful two hour trip.
We done our shopping and sorted the digs, went to the bar for a couple drinks and got an early night.

Sunday saw us have a day fishing on Jennys lake, it was a nice days angling.  I was in peg two,  the numpty in peg three.

Peg 2 , Jennys.

The day was decent.  I had easily 60lb of silvers and a couple late lumps down the  edge. James had less silvers but did well catching half a dozen doubles down his edge late on.  We would be happy to draw Jennys on the first day...

Our sections would run:
Jennys/Trewaters on Monday.
Twin Oaks/Trelawny on Tues
Porth on Weds
Bolingey on Thurs
Pollawyn on Friday.

Monday saw us at the draw in the club and we both duly picked Trewaters....saved having to faff with the van.  Both pegs were not the best.
I was on P21 on the top lake,  half way along the bank.

Withers had 41 which was another duff area but on the lower lake.

Peg 21 at Trewaters

 

Fish to target, from what we gathered, would be small carp,  F1's and maybe some skimmers.
With bait allowances in place I had with me.  1 unit of each caster and corn.  2 units of micro,  the same of 6mm pellets and 2 units of 8mm meat.  Plus some worm and groundbait.

Rigs were simple.  A shallow rig and deep rig for worm/caster. This was at 13m as the wind was iffy.
A meat rig for 2&2. Last of all a rig for the margins to fish over groundbait late on.
I also had a method rod and waggler set up.

The all in sounded and the various baits were potted into the swims.

The rain started as the whistle went and my peg had a left to right wind.  I started on the method and had to wait half an hour for a fish.  The guys along my bank had all caught skimmers and odd carp/F1. My first catch was a carp of maybe 2lb,  soon followed by another.
90 mins into the match I came over the worm, fishing 1/4 of a dendra I had a flurry of perch and small skimmers. Bites were regular but the double shipping and the fact that they were that small meant I switched back to the method.

By the end of the second hour I was on four carp,  I pulled out of a couple as they didn't seem ferocious in their feeding.
I switched to the wag with a banded 6mm on the hook and had a flurry of 5 or 6 carp,  but had to be close to the island. This was a bonus really as nobody else had set up a wag.

The guy on the end peg had been catching a few decent carp fishing along his end bank,  the chap on the next peg to my right was struggling and the nice man on flyer 19 had landed a few. But I reckon I was winning the lake after three hours.

At 3pm i looked over the meat line and had a fish right away.  This was a bit of a false dawn and was only one of two bites off that line all day.  The worm line was only giving very small fish.
The last two hours saw my swim die and everyone else started to catch,  p19 had half a dozen fish in the last 40 mins.  The end peg had kept plugging away.

Meanwhile I could just make out keiron rich bagging a few on the peg more or less opposite me.

Between 4 and 5pm I had whole two skimmers.  Nobody caught anything of note from the margins,  just odd fish.

The all out sounded and I guess I had 25lb. I had more than peg 23 but beaten by 19 and end peg 25 .
The scales tipped my weight to 30lb 6oz.
P19 had 46lb for section 2nd. K.Rich had 49lb for section win.  P25 had 39lb.

The lake James had produced a 120lb+ weight and a couple 40lb+ nets.

I got 3 points for my result, as did James,  it was a tricky day but the peeps who know the lake said we didn't have great pegs and the expected ones did well.

The evening was spent in the bar for a couple drinks then in the caravan eating....

Day two sees us on Twin Oaks or Trelawny.