I wont go too in depth with the blog as it'd take forever to write.....
So firstly I will run through Friday, I set off at 5:50am and made a steady 2hr 20 minute drive in to Wales and arrived around 10 minutes before everyone else.
I arrived to what was obviously a building site, Holgan Farm is being expanded to cater for holidaying people and day ticket anglers. But what was built looked nice, the scenery was outstanding too.
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| My nice lounge/bedroom.....Great views too.... |
Day 1,
Our first match was on Friday and would be on the Carp Lake, Ian said 100lb+ would be the winning weight and that white pellets would work, as would various other baits and an array of tactics, though it seemed that paste would be the main form of attack for most (based in Mr Heaps' advice). I don't use paste too often so decided to work on maggot/caster/groundbait as my main line of attack. I also bought some micros and 6mm pellets(which were rather 4mm-ish) from the shop as Sensas brand pellets are the only ones to be used. Some corn was also on my tray, but corn is something I don't catch too much on, possibly due to me not using much since I was like 17.Digs, drinks and food would be sorted post-match but by all accounts the rooms are nice enough, as for the food, we shall see.
Soon everyone was present and the draw was done, we'd fish 11 til 5pm, so had around 2hrs to set up.
I let everyone draw and 2 balls remained, one for me and one for Steve Burgess.
I picked my ball and peg 21 would be my 'home' for the following 8hrs. It was the only peg on the lake without an island chuck, but I did have a long margin to my right. Opposite me was Derek. I had Adam Caswell to my left and I could see Steve Burgess across from me as well.
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| My Carp Lake peg...Steve Burgess opposite. |
To summarise the day, it was hard going for pretty much everyone with carp and silvers both at a premium. I baited a margin line, which gave me 1 carp and a crucian late on in the match on corn. But my main focus was at 11m on the base of a ledge of a sunken plateau, fed with maggot/caster over groundbait, this doubled as my shallow line. A method feeder was also made up, it never gave me a bit when cast to one of the end bank pegs!
Mike Wellings got off to a flyer, but it was very quiet. It took me ages to get a carp, only a few bits in the first few hours made it into my keepnets. I did mug a big double of around 17lb by dropping a couple maggots on it's nose, and my word did it fight!! But it was a welcome fish.
But all in all I kept plugging away hoping to pick up odd carp in amongst the crucians I had started to catch. With an hour to go I had about 8 crucians, some roach/rudd and 3 carp (if I remember rightly). The carp then decided to feed shallow in the last 10 minutes and I promptly hooked another decent fish of around 12lb which was a bonus, again mugged on maggots. Most of my fish came to corn or maggot over plenty of small balls of groundbait.
The all out was called at 5pm and after this the fish swirling at loose fed maggots, I managed to feed them into 4m out. Funny things are fish.
Soon the weigh in was progress, Alan Healey was leading the way with 70lb when they got to me, but other than that no much else was caught.
My nets gave me just over 45lb to put me into second, which is how it stayed with Adam, Darren North and Lee Waller struggling along my bank.
So I was on 9 points and £30 better off after the 1st day.
The evening was spent in the Bush Inn, a pub around 10 minutes drive away. We had a laugh and the food was ok.
Day 2,
The morning started off ok, a nice view of the scenery from my window, but a little achy as my bed wasn't very big!! This coupled with 2 episodes of Nigella Lawson at her best (good cameraman..!!) perked me up.
Down for the semi-organised rabble that is breakfast (ok, nothing to write home about).
The 2nd day's match would be on the crystal clear, lily pad infested Tench/Crucian lake. Nobody expected big weights, maybe 25lb would win, but we couldn't predict who and where on the lake it'd be won from. Apparently the crucians average 1.5lb and there are 'plenty' of small skimmers, roach, the tench go to 5lb+ and some rogue carp are present....and eels.
Again Ian said paste would work, feeding nothing or very little. Worm/caster would be a good bait too.
I wanted to go down the groundbait and maggot route, but had some micros, worm and caster to use. But I also fed a line with hemp.
At the draw I drew 2nd last again and was rewarded with peg 24. I had lillies at 8m in front plus a left hand margin which looked totally un-inviting, dark and cold, covered in a crappy scum.
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| View from my Crucian/Tench Lake peg. Alan Healey opposite. |
So I ended up baiting 3 spots along the lily line (1 of each worm/caster, hemp and groundbait), an open water spot fed via tosspot with maggot/groundbait/micro and a spot down the marginal shelf at 4m to my left with just maggots fed. I did have some corn and expanders as hookbaits only.
1st drop I hooked a decent fish in an open water spot, I got it near the net twice and the 2nd time th hook pulled, it looked like a big crucian (or small common) of 4lb+ and would have been brilliant start. But most guys had early bites.
Steve Burgess was pegged to my right and he too lost a decent fish early on, his, he thinks, was a big bream.
So the match panned out with bites at a premium and very tentative. Lee Waller looked like he'd done enough for the win fishing worm to the pads in front mostly. Alan on peg 29 catching a few. I reckoned I had around 13lb at the all out, it was a case of pick a fish off a line, try for a second, if that never came then try another spot or bait. I did feed quite a lot compared to others too.
I ended up with a handful of blade skimmers and 8 or 9 crucians from 8oz to 2lb. Mostly caught on maggots by the lilies, but a run of 3 crucians on my short line boosted my weight.
The worm gave me nothing, the hemp line gave me 1 fish and the open water gave me 2 crucians. My best spot until the last 15 minutes was the corner of the main pads where my groundbait had gone in.
The scales arrived at my peg 15 minutes after the all-out and Lee Waller had 15lb 2oz, other than that there was a few weights of under 5lb including 9oz and 14oz. I tipped my catch onto the scales and could see it'd be close, but my 15lb 8oz moved me into the lead with only Alan to weigh.
He had 9lb or so for 3rd place, securing me the win. Nice.
So at this point the scores on the doors overall had me on 19 points and Alan on 17 points. Mike had 13 points and was in 3rd I think.
The evening was spent on site drinking, chatting and generally having a decent social, so bedtime for some of us was well past 1:30am. A few guys worse for wear, but I was ok enough and fell asleep around 2:30am after watching a bit more Nigella.
Oh and we also took in some paste fishing lessons from PSV's resident 'expert' Adam Caswell.........no doubt the video will appear somewhere!!
Day 3,
The final day was to be fished on the Match Lake, with 100lb again predicted to win, especially as it'd fished well on Saturday to the pleasure anglers.We did the draw on the Saturday night as we wanted to get started earlier, and finish earlier, so we could head home. I needed a good draw and to finish above Alan and higher than 6th to win overall for the weekend.
So after some food on the previous evening we picked our pegs, again I waited to second last, with pegs 3 and 22 left. I picked mine, peg 22 and Steve had peg 3.
Then in a brainwave of a moment someone suggested we go look at our pegs, Ryan Radford I think it was decided it'd be a good idea.......now how often do you see 8 guys wandering around a lake in pitch blackness looking for peg numbers that were on the side of each peg? Oh there was a hedgehog on peg 3's platform too, so we disturbed it's peace and quiet.
A draw for a pairs match was done, with everyone sticking a quid in to go with £20 we had left over from the deposits. So £30 would go to the winning pair. My partner was Steve Burgess, the odd call of 'fix' was called and even the odd comment that it would be Steve's only way of getting some dollar out of the weekend.
Anyways the morning came and we were soon fed and watered and made our ways to our pegs to finish setting up (some/most had at least sorted boxes and nets before brekkie).
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| Match Lake peg 22....again Steve opposite me!!
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I set up a pellet waggler and method feeder to fish to the corner of the island, a rig for the margin by empty peg 19 to my left which remained un-used bar 1 look (the green algae in the water had drifted that way). A pole rig for 2+2 was made with corn over caster/micro and a rig for banded pellet over pellet at 13m was made, plus a shallow rig for the same spot.
I could keep an eye on Alan as he was to my left on the other bank, to my right I had a rather bleary eyed Lee Waller (he slept from 10:15 for about 90 minutes.)
The all-in was called and Mike Welling had an early carp on the waggler, but generally it looked like it'd be a long hard match, and so it proved!!
The 1st hour gave me 2 carp on the pellet wag, including a nice double foul hooked in the tail.
The 2nd hour was blank for me, though Alan had a carp as did Mike and Steve.
Hour 3 gave me a roach on shallow pellet, lost a carp shallow (foul hooked) and 2 carp on the method feeder.
Hour 4 gave me 1 carp on the long pole line and 1 on the waggler, though I did have to re-tackle as I lost one float up in the tree in a proper wonky cast!!
The penultimate 60 minutes had me probably still in around 3rd place from what I could see, though Steve Burgess had landed around 3 or 4 carp, Mike Wellings had 4 and had 1 jump from his net. Lee Waller was on 2 carp and Ryan Radford also had a couple. I wasn't sure on anyone else, though I thought Mark Radford had a handful of fish.
The last hour was a bit better, 2 fish on the method feeder in two casts, plus 2 on the pole (along with a few foul hooked fish lost) meant I ended up with 9 carp, eight of which were mostly around the 3lb mark and 1 double. Maybe 35lb I guessed.
The all out was called and mist of the gear was put tided, some had packed up and all were commenting how poor it'd been.
The scales arrived with Adam Caswell just ahead of Mark Radford with about 33lb. I knew I had to be close, but I knew I had beat Alan as he only had 1 carp despite all his efforts.
My nets ended up giving me 43lb and the lead. With only Mike left to weigh I was sure of at least 2nd, but Mike's nets weren't enough and he weighed less than Mark but he had a chance to pip Alan to overall second for the weekend. So I had another win. Bonus.
Back to the car park and the envelopes were dished out, with me 1st, Adam 2nd and Mark in third on the day.
The pairs was won by Mark Radford and Mike Wellings, beating me and Steve on weight by 2oz!!
Overall I won with 29 points from 30 and Alan beat Mike on weight to take 2nd, so that carp that jumped out of his net cost him at least 3rd on the day and 2nd overall (at least 60 quid then!!).
Overall it was a good weekend, the guys in the club are all nice guys and I enjoyed their company and am looking forward to 2015, when we may head elsewhere, who knows, we will wait and see on that!!
Here are some other pics of the lakes.
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| View across the Match Lake |
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| View across the Carp Lake |
So a really good weekend, the weather was good, the company decent and the location was stunning. But the fishing was not great each day for us. Maybe it's bad luck, maybe it is the fact we don't know the lakes well enough, maybe we should have all used white pellets and paste. Probably because of the standard of angler.
I'd recommend Holgan Farm, but personally I would wait a while for the works to finish. It is a totally safe place and as I said gorgeous surrounds.
There is no phone signal of note and it isn't a 'happening' area, but Narbeth (3 miles) and Tenby (10 miles) aren't too far. There are a few shops and take-aways in Narbeth. A few pubs are within 3 miles.
No doubt the PSV blog will soon have the full results up soon and Steve's version of events, probably a little more entertaining??
Next up for me is a match at Viaduct on Sunday on either Campbell or Cary.
Until then, take care.
Lee.
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