White Acres’ October festivals are a regular fixture in Alan Scotthorne’s busy match calendar. Here’s his in-depth account from the recent Maver-backed event at the Cornish holiday destination.

After the pressure cooker atmosphere of fishing the World Championship in Croatia I was really look forward to the October festivals at White Acres. I treat them seriously but try to not get too uptight if things aren’t going my way. I have not been carp fishing through the summer months and this does leave me at a bit of a disadvantage.

Day One – Bolingey

My first day draw on the Maver Festival was on Bolingey Lake, so I was straight in at the deep end with this being predominantly a carp fishery with some real ‘big boys’ present! At the draw, Peg 49 in the first arm was my first port of call. It’s a peg I have been on before so I knew it was the shallowest on the lake, but with warm and favourable conditions I felt it would hold a good head of fish.

Meat had not been allowed on all of the summer matches on this lake but is allowed for this festival. All the talk was whether the fish would want to feed on it on this first match, as they had not seen it for such a long period. I like to fish meat so this was my main plan of attack.

I simply started at six joints of my Acolyte pole, fishing at a 2 o’clock angle and just cupping in meat and hemp through a medium Cad Pot and sitting over it to try to catch an odd early fish. I never attack this lake from the start, as it seems better to wait for a couple of hours before starting to introduce larger helpings of bait when the fish start feeding properly. Plus, with a bait limit of just 2 pints of meat, you need to hold this back for the latter part of the match.

My rig was a 0.4g AS2 on 0.18mm Supplex main line to a 0.16mm hooklength and a size 16 B911 Kamasan hook with just a Drennan yellow Carp Bungee elastic that I love for these bigger fish.

After 10 minutes I had my fist fish and an hour later I had just three fish to show from this line. I had vowed to keep my eyes on the rest of the anglers in the section to try to pick out what was working and I noticed that all the anglers that where fishing long poles were really struggling for bites. This prompted me to stay on the short line and be patient.

I did start throwing five or six pieces of meat to this spot but with little reward I cut it out. Instead, I just potted bait using a 250ml Drennan pot and started to introduce more hemp but still only six or seven cubes of meat.

After two hours I was up to six fish and holding my own with the anglers I could see but was itching to start introducing more bait. After two and a half hours I started throwing 10 pieces of meat twice to start building the peg for the last two hours bagging I was hoping for. I did have a quick look shallow on the long pole but never had a bite so soon retuned back to the short line.

The margins are often important late on at Bolingey and for my edge line I elected to fish in 2ft 6in of water, just out from the bank. Again, this was to my right, towards my spare peg with a top two plus two sections. Here I fed a fishmeal groundbait and dead maggots to hopefully catch some fish going into the last hour if I needed to.

My rig for this spot was a AS4 0.4g to 0.20mm Supplex and 0.18mm hooklength to a size 12 Drennan Margin Carp hook baited with a bunch of dead maggots. Cupping formed balls of groundbait and feeding about a pint of maggots I caught five fish from this area and continued to add odd fish from my other line. I made a good decision fishing slightly out from the margin, as after talking to the other anglers, a lot had fished tight to the bank after seeing lots of fish swirling but struggled to get them to take the hook bait.

I ended the match with 132lb but was unfortunately just 5lb short of winning the section. A 2nd in section wasn’t too bad a start, however, and I was looking forward to the next day on Pollawyn ‘Match Lake’.

Day Two – Pollawyn

Not the peg I wanted! Pollawyn Lake is normally good to me, but Peg 41 is one of the worst pegs on it and that is what stuck to my mitt. This section in the arms had fished well in the 30s so I was up against it to get a result and I felt a section win was almost impossible.

This peg is in a corner and you can reach the island across. One problem was it was overgrown with brambles on both banks; not what you needed when fishing in shallow water is a must and you want to avoid foul-hooked fish! Fishing across was a real nightmare and I lost several fish in my opening gambit due to the brambles. In the end I had to sack this line before I lost my head altogether!

I had caught an early carp on six pole sections down the middle after starting here on meat on my normal 0.4g rig, again Cad-potting meat to the left hand side of the peg, so I knew there were a few carp about.

After the first hour I spent the next two fishing for skimmers down the centre track with softened 4mm pellets, a light 0.3g AS3 float to 0.16mm line and a 0.117mm hooklength with a Kamasan B911 F1 size 18 hook, catching 25 small skimmers and three carp.These fish will have gone around 15lb in total before a few larger bubbles started to come up on this line to signal a few carp had arrived. I always use light elastic on this rig and just a single sold No8 elastic dealt with the three carp I hooked really well, even with such a light Supplex hooklength.

I switched back to my carp rig and started introducing meat on this spot and immediately had a carp around 6lb but the next fish was much bigger and eventually broke me on the far-side brambles, much to my disgust.

The last hour I fished down the margin, catching three carp but again lost a 10lb-plus fish that did me in the near-side brambles. These lost fish were to cost me dearly with my 53lb total only good enough for 3rd. I felt pretty peeved that the banks where in such a state on what is the main lake at White Acres. Now I needed three wins on the bounce if I was going to make the top 10, as this was always going to be a high scoring event.

Day Three – Jenny’s & Trewaters

I ideally wanted to draw Trewaters but 15 on Jenny’s was my next draw and a good area. I have never really got to grips with this lake so I was hoping to learn a little from this day as the Parkdean Masters Final is always on this lake if I could fish well enough to make this year’s final.

My wife Sandra had drawn the same section on end Peg 13 so I knew we would be battling it out to win the section as she had won her section the day before on Pollawyn and was on top form. I started the match on the Method feeder, casting to the aerator rope. In 30 minutes I never had a bite so almost knew then we were in for a difficult day.

I had prepped a line with a couple of pots full of coarsely chopped worms and corn at 13 metres and a quick look here produced a carp first drop, then a skimmer next drop and then nothing. Fishing a full dendrabaena on the hook and potting regular bait for the next hour produced just two indications, so it was back on the Method again for not a bite.

I could only see pegs 14 and 13 but a quick shout to the guy on next peg revealed that the lake was fishing really hard. I had been feeding meat short on a top four and chopped worms on a top three in fishmeal groundbait throwing small nuggets to this line were I started to catch odd skimmers and crucians. At least I was putting fish in the net very spasmodically.

I clocked that Sandra was catching much faster over this inside line up in the water so I had a quick look shallow on meat. Using a 0.2g Crystal Dibber I started to catch odd carp and skimmers.

The last hour flew but again I lost two very big angry carp and my 40lb weight was second behind wife Sandra who had caught two carp late down the edge to go with her shallow fish to nick the section with 46lb. That was my chance of making the top 10 gone, so I could now relax and enjoy the next two days and try to learn a little for the coming week.

Day Four – Trelawney & Twin Oaks

Peg 25 on Trelawney was my next draw, which I did fancy. I had two problems; Grant Allbut was on end Peg 20 and Cameron Hughes was on Peg 22 where there had been a large shoal of F1s residing. I was going to have to fish well to beat these two.

Again I started off potting meat on a 5m line but also loose fed casters at 14.5 metres to hopefully get some F1s in my peg. I fished my now standard AS2 0.4g rig and caught three carp in the first hour, but lost two foul hookers. I was itching to pick up my shallow rig that was set just 18 inches deep with a new prototype Drennan dibber of 0.2g with a size 14 B911 F1 hook to 0.13mm Drennan Fluorocarbon hooklength baited with a worm head.

As I shipped out I said a little prayer and first drop I had a roach followed by no bites. Great! Cam and Grant were both bagging and already had close to 20 F1s, so I now needed to focus on carp.

I came back on the short line added some meat to my casters and also started feeding heavily on the 14m swim for the next 30 minutes. I did add another carp short before going back out and immediately caught a carp long, but then the F1s suddenly turned up. In the next hour I put 31lb of them into my net. I know this because I put them all in one keepnet before they disappeared as fast as they arrived.

There were plenty of fish on the bottom and the blows told you this as it was erupting, so out went a full-depth rig with half a dendra on and in the last hour I added four carp. I still needed to feed with a big Drennan pot of meat and casters to draw one to the hook bait.

I finished the match with 85lb, enough for 3rd behind Grant and Cam but again felt I was in no position to beat either with the lack of F1s in the first half of the match.

Day Five – Porth Reservoir

I did manage a section win at Porth catching 11lb of roach but my 32-point total was only good enough for 20th overall. You need to win sections to get in the top 10 on these White Acres festivals. Des Shipp put in another great performance to win and just seems to avoid the really poor draws but also manages to scrape a good result from mediocre pegs too. Well done Des!

Parkdean Preston Week

The following week was the Preston Innovations Festival, which culminates in the Parkdean Masters Final. Again things didn’t go quite to plan as I managed two wins and a second but suffered two bad performances to leave me short of making the £25,000 final. Congratulations to Jamie Wilde for winning the final, though. A great win from a really nice lad. Well done Jamie against one of the strongest commercial line ups we have seen!