Gaz Drury WIns White Acres Two-Day Festival

Geplaatst Match Nieuws at Jun 07, 2011

Dynamite's Gaz Drury has just returned from a family holiday at White Acres fishery and while he was there he managed to sneak in on the two-day festival and scooped overall glory.

Gaz takes up the story:

"On arrival at White Acres I went straight to the tackle shop to collect the passes so we could have a go on Jenny's with the kids. Whilst Kirsty was writing the passes, Clint mentioned he was organising a two day festival for the locals and I would be welcome to fish it. It meant I would have to give up the Gold Match on the Monday but it gave me a chance of some bigger money and a chance to fish with the White Acres stars which included the likes of Harry Billing, Andy Dare and Clint Elliott, so I payed my entry fee and went to tell Alison the good /bad news.

Day 1 saw me draw peg 11 on Acorn Pool and I was told we all had loads of room as the whole lake was shut for us. On arrival at my peg, I was greeted with an angler next to me which wasn't ideal.

I set up a Method rod for the long chuck to the island,  a 6m line straight in front and a 6m line at 2 o'clock, with a 13m line down the edge into the corner.

I started the match on the Method and after half an hour i had not had so much as a liner so I decided to go on the 2 o'clock line which I had fed with chopped worm and caster with a tin of XL Sweetcorn mixed in. I started to catch good stamp roach with the odd better skimmer and thought this will do till I go on my meat line late on. But, as soon as I thought this, my swim just filled with millions of micro perch. After 20 mins of one-a-bung 'buzzy bees', I decided to try my 6m line with Luncheon Meat where I had fed 6mm cubes and intended to fish 8mm cubes of meat on the hook. First drop, I had carp number one at about 3lb and then I caught roach and skimmers fairly steadily.

I fished this line for about an hour with no more carp but missed bites were a massive problem so I had a quick look down the edge which just produced a 2lb skimmer, so I went back on the 6m line and got carp number two.

It appeared that every time I fed, roach just piled in on the bait and caused me problems so I decided to big pot only with 8mm meat and leave the 6mm out for a bit. This worked a treat and I ended the match with 11 carp for 42lb and 30lb of roach and skimmers. This put me second in section and second on lake - it was won from peg 5, fishing shallow with 100lb so I came away quite happy with a section second going into day two.

Day two was going to be on Python Lake which is full of F1's, skimmers, roach and tench. This suited me because it was a canal type lake and was going to be like back at home at The Oaks. The day before, it had been won with 52lb by Clint Elliott so a big weight was not on the cards but I had been told that the fish on here behave a bit strange.

I drew peg 28 which put me in the narrows on a 13m swim. Not ideal, but easy to fish to the far bank which is where i wanted to spend most of the match. All I set up was a far bank rig for 2ft off the mud in about 2ft of water, a rat hole rig in eight inches, tight to the bank and an edge rig for fishing towards some rushes.

Across, I was going to fish 4mm meat instead of pellets after a phone call to Andy Bennett, who knows White Acres well, said that I would miss out on the skimmers if i fished pellet. A worm mix was prepared for down the edge, late on.

The start of the match could not have been better with six F1's in as many puts coming to the net. Then I could not get a bite so I perceivered and kept nicking an odd F1 or skimmer but decided that I was not going to get away with one line across so I started to bounce fish off two lines and this worked a treat. It was still quite slow, but I came back with a fish every go. Harry Billing was bagging three pegs down, on paste at 6m and I thought I was never going to compete with that but i stuck to my plan and just kept plodding on. With an hour to go, I went down the edge where I had been feeding chop mix all match and it was solid with dumpy perch averaging 6oz a piece and the last put-in of the match resulted in a 3lb bream.

At the weigh-in, Harry was first and to my amazement he only weighed 49lb. I suddenly thought I didn't have a weight as I was convinced Harry had battered me but I weighed in 60lb to my delight. It just goes to show that you should never go by what you think your neighbours are catching!

At the last peg he was claiming 50lb so after a tense second weigh of 52lb in total, I had done enough to win the section and the lake so it was all about waiting for Clint to come back from Acorn with the other section weights.

What made this two-day event special, was the fact that my kids came down to the weigh-in as they never get to see what happens in Dad's world as I am always away and Holly, my little one, was in awe at the amount of fish that had been caught, bless her.

It turned out that three of us were on three points and it was going to go down to weight. Some quick sums in my head and I knew I could not be beaten so victory was mine and a good start to my holidays with some extra spending money for the zoo the next day.