New Drennan signing, Steve Waters, has just broken the venue record at Ivy House Lakes and scored back-to-back wins with his new Acolyte pole! Here’s how he did it:
Last weekend I visited Ivy House Lakes in Wiltshire and really gave my new Acolyte pole a workout. This is a day ticket venue with matches on the main lake on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. I’ve been told it was completely overgrown up until recently when Andy Lloyd (of Dynamite Baits fame) and his wife took it over and remodelled it. I have to say they’ve done an immense amount of work and it’s definitely worth a visit!
On the Saturday match I drew Peg 6 on the main lake and set up to catch carp long at 14.5 metres on the deck with corn, a shorter 6m swim to target bream/skimmers over micro pellet and a 6m margin swim to a tree stump with the intention of feeding groundbait in the last two hours.
After the first half hour or so it was quite clear that the carp were more interested in cruising near the surface anywhere from a foot to two feet deep. I therefore decided to set up another rig, set it to 2ft and try to find that depth somewhere in my swim, which I did at 13 metres to the next pallet. Here I fed half a pot of dead maggots.
I left this new line for about 20 minutes then decided to have a quick look to see if anything was interested. Well all I can say is ‘lift off’ as it was absolutely solid! I fished this line for the rest of the match and took carp from 7lb to 17lb, Kinder potting dead maggots.
What impressed me more than anything was how the Acolyte held up. It really is a strong pole in my opinion. These carp plough off to the middle of the lake at a rate of knots and the Acolyte coped no problem at all.
I used pink Bungee with 0.20mm Supplex to an 0.18mm hooklength of the same material as it was a take-no-prisoners scenario! I finished the match with 248lb 3oz, not only to win the match but also break the venue match record, which was previously 191lb. I was over the moon!
After such a brilliant day I decided to return to Ivy House for the Sunday Open. This time I drew Peg 23 on the other side of the lake. Before I had even drawn I’d pretty much decided that I was going to fish exclusively down the edge from start to finish plus a token gesture 5m swim while the edge settled.
After drawing and arriving at my peg I was greeted with carp spawning against some fallen fir tree branches to my left, so I started on this line to see if any were interested in feeding. After 20 minutes and two carp (both foul hooked) and a hundred line bites I decided to scrap this line and let them get on with their business!
I’d already set up two lines down the right-hand margin; one at five metres for the last hour with groundbait and then another at 12 metres to some stick ups to feed with dead maggots.
It took a while for carp to move in but when odd fish arrived they were big! Most of the fish I caught where all double figures and being a shallower 18in margin than the previous day these things bow wave out of the peg at a hundred miles an hour! Again, the Acolyte performed perfectly. I foul-hooked an occasional carp or two and had 13m of pole heading towards Swindon bent in half, thinking here we go breakage time – not a chance; it performed effortlessly!
To cut a very long story short I managed to win the match with 166lb for back-to-back match wins.
I’d caught over 400lb of fish in a weekend on the Acolyte. It did everything I expected of it and more!
