Welcome to White Acres and News-Reel 2009.
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The sun is shining, the birds are singing and it hasn’t rained for about five minutes now so I guess spring is here!
Welcome to the latest update of news-reel.com the online home of White Acres Fishery, I am actually joking about the rain, touch wood it hasn’t been to bad this year we have had both good and bad weather just like the rest of the country.
It seems as if we haven’t stopped from the moment we opened what with opening straight into two weeks of festivals then a busy Easter holiday then another festival!
So far we have had a really positive start to the year and all the lakes have been fishing well (I will go into more details later) but what we would like to point out is that we have NOT had another fish kill and that the lakes are fine. It is just a bit upsetting for us when we are hearing things from people, or seeing things on the internet that simply are not true and what is our biggest bug-bear is that most of this information is coming from people who don’t even come to White Acres or haven’t been this year. I know how quickly rumours start but please be assured that we have not had a problem and if anyone has any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. Right, rant over! Just felt we needed to get that out of our system (it is the censored version!)
The year started with the Bait Tech festival, this is the first time Bait Tech had sponsored the event and they did not let us down, all of the anglers walked away with goodie bags filled with their exciting products. The festival was a huge success and we were please to see the lakes fishing so well so early on in the year. It was a bit of a stab in the dark not only for the anglers but for us too as the lakes had not been subject to any extensive fishing since the re-stocking but we were pleased to say they all held up and it was great to hear so much positive chat from the anglers. The first festival victor of the year was Steve Mayo; Steve won the festival with a perfect 36 points beating off stiff competition from the other anglers. Steve had reasonable results on the first day and a section win on the second day but this still kept him just out of the top twenty but then with another 3 straight section wins he crept up the ranks to take the win with 36 points and a weight of 328lb 13oz. Once again congratulations to Steve Mayo and the runners up Giles Cochrane & Steve Ringer.
It was a case of no rest for the wicked and we were then straight into the Dynamite Bait Festival, this is one of the most popular festivals we hold and this year there was an added excitement with the introduction of our new rules. Throughout the winter we took a good look at the rules and changed them for the benefit of the fishery and the anglers with the main change being the introduction of the “method” We have previously not allowed this to be used because of fish welfare but given that it had been modernised in recent times we felt the new models were now “fish-friendly” enough to be used here. All the rules changes we have made have one clear intention and that is for people to catch fish! It was great to see so many new names on this year’s festival especially younger up and coming match anglers. Dynamite once again surpassed themselves with their generosity of prizes and not only provided hundreds of pounds worth of products for the overall winners but also a goodie bag for all of the anglers in the festival. Our 2009 Dynamite champion was Dean Smith, Dean didn’t have the best start to the festival with only four points on day one at Bolingey but he didn’t let this get to him and it was then four days of straight section wins to take the title with 36 points and an impressive weight of 362lb 03oz. The Dynamite festival is the first of the year that allows pellets and this definitely made a difference in the overall weights and really brought out the best fishing on the lakes. Well done to Dean and congratulations to our runners up Alan Scotthorne & Ian Winter.
The school holidays were up next and also coinciding with this was our annual Junior & Intermediates festivals. The format this year had moved from the weekend to mid week and was definitely a bonus as it allowed the youngsters a bit more practice before the festival. Both of these events are extremely popular this year we had over 50 promising young anglers fishing the festivals.
The Coca Cola Drennan International Junior festival was fished this year by 31 anglers on Jennys & Trelawney, the weather leading up to the festival was rotten but fortunately cleared in time for the start of the matches, the festival champion this year was Luke Butterworth who fish an amazing couple of matches winning his section on both days to give him maximum points of 16 and a weight of 73lb 3oz, the runners up were Rory Jones & Sam Hughes. The sponsorship money from Coca Cola was split between the juniors and the intermediates and combined with their entrance fees and amazing prizes from Drennan no angler walked away empty handed. Drennan provided goodie bags for all the anglers that fished and there were great prizes for all of the top eight anglers.
The next step up from the junior festival is the intermediate festival and this year was the best turn out we have seen to date with 23 anglers between the ages of 16 and 18 fishing the festival. This is the third year we have held the Preston Innovations Coca Cola Intermediate festival and also the best year in our eyes, when the giveaways arrived from Preston we were astounded and it took us all afternoon to pack the bags up as there were so many free products for the anglers that totalled over £150 each at retail value! The festival was won for the second year running by Luke Hancock, Luke fished a blinding couple of matches to retain his title with a perfect 12 points and weight of 121lb 4oz, second was Ben Lockwood and third went to Josh Anderson. Once again prizes were provided for the top eight anglers and I’m sure some of them would require an extra vehicle to take their tremendous haul of prizes home with them!
Thanks and congratulations to all of the young anglers that took part in these two festivals, it is great to see so many keen young anglers in our sport and watch out for their names in the future as I’m sure there are some potential Raison’s & Scotthorne’s amongst them. Thank you also to Coca Cola, Drennan International & Preston Innovations for supporting these events and making it possible for us to hold them. The midweek positioning of the festival worked out well for us all and we will be keeping it at this format for 2010.
Our spring festival programme came to an end with the Milo Festival, by which time the reports of great fishing had spread across the country and the reserve list became nearly as long as the list of entrants! It was a sell out festival with 180 anglers fishing over five days for a stab at the title. As we had progressed into April we expected the weather to be better but what we got was actually one of the best festival weeks weather wise we have had and it was only as the final anglers were being weighed in on the last day of the festival did the heavens open. The fishing conditions were bordering on perfect and the lakes fished well, it was a funny week on some of the lakes with the fish moving around so there were no “flyer” areas but this didn’t stop the weights coming and we saw our fist double tonnes of the year. The 2009 Milo festival champion title went to Steve Barraclough, it was a touch and go week for Steve who had been in the top ten since day one but it went to the wire on the final day to determine who would be our champion but Steve took the victory with a perfect 36 points and a weight of 342lb 6oz, this was the closest festival result of the year we had had so far and it could have gone to a number of anglers once the dropped result came into play but the win went to Steve with Darren Cox second and Kieron Rich third.
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We can’t express our thanks enough to all of the anglers, not just those on the festivals, but all of the anglers that have visited us this year so far for putting their faith in us and retuning to fish. It just proves to us how much all the hard work we put in over the winter really paid off. For all the festival results and full reports as well as weekly resident match results visit the match focus page on the site where you can read for yourselves some of the great catches we have had already this season.
For those of you who haven’t yet visited us this season we’ll keep the following stocking update and also to run along side this I’ll just outline how all of the lakes have been fishing so far this season already.
All restocking has been carried out to Environment Agency, CEFAS & DEFRA’s approval, all stocking has been carried out with non-KHV affected species with exception to the Carp that we had in our stock ponds and fish farm. We have been granted permission to be the first fishery in Cornwall to stock Barbel, 300 of the fish will be introduced into Python & Trelawney at 8oz and a further 1000 into the fish farm to grow on for 2010. We will also be stocking 1000 small chub into the fish farm to grow on for 2010-11. With the restocking of approximately 8500 fish the fishing should be better than ever
Eery
The most dramatic change of all our lakes, we have removed all Carp over 10lb and moved them to Nelsons lake where both sides of the lake are now specimen, all the other Carp (200) have been moved up into Sycamore lake, we have restocked the lake with 1900 small carp from 8oz to 2lb to start a fresh.
Python
Has been fully drained and all Carp removed and stocked into Pollawyn, We have permission to stock 150 small Barbel, 600 skimmer average 1lb, 300 Tench, 8oz and 2000 F1 Carp around the 1lb size in addition to the many F1’s, crucians, Tench and big brown goldfish that are already in there this should make the fishing better that ever.
Canal
We have totally drained and started a fresh with this lake; we have restocked the lake with 450 Tench, 2000 F1 Carp and about 800 good size skimmers
Trelawney
This lake will also have 150 small barbel stocked, an extra 250 Carp 1lb to 2lb fish from the fish farm, 700 1lb F1 Carp.
Nelsons
Both sides of Nelsons Lake are now Specimen lakes and have approximately 50 Carp in each side from 10lb to 24lb along with several catfish to 30lb
Twin Oaks
Both sides have been stocked with 150 carp 10oz to 1½ lb from the stock ponds
Acorn
Stocked with an extra 150 Carp from the stock ponds
Sycamore
We have drained the lake re filled with fresh water and stocked with the 200 carp from 3lb to 10lb from Eery and 100 1lb carp from our fish farm
Pollawyn
Pollawyn has had a fresh stock of 400 Carp 1lb to 3lb from Python, the fish farm & stock ponds
Jenny’s, Pats Pool
Both these lakes have stayed the same for 2009
So that was the restocking update and now on to the current report. Pollawyn has been fishing well since the start of the season and like all waters has had its “on” days as well as its “off” as we all know fishing is weather determined and the fish will back off after a heavy spell of rain. The top weight to come off Pollawyn this year so far is 248lb 2oz is proving very popular with our pleasure anglers and some nice ghosties are being caught that haven’t been caught for a few years. Python is probably one of the lakes that has most benefited from the winter re-stocking, we noticed this especially in the first festival where it was able to compete with Jennys on a daily basis, it has not really played much of a part in the matches at the moment but the anglers pleasure fishing on the lakes have been having a fish a chuck! Jennys has been busy everyday with anglers catching well on all methods, this is one of the most popular lakes on the site and it has been great, especially over the school holidays, to see so many families on the lake. Trelawney is used on and off in the matches and we have had a few good weights from the rover match coming from here, the re-stocking of the smaller carp has definitely stirred the fish up in the lake producing some great weights but as predicted the barbel other than the odd one have yet to play a major part as they are still small. Twin Oaks has seen the most consistent top weights this year of all the lakes with both sides coping well with the pressure of being used for all of the festivals, higher weights have been predominately from the low numbered side with the high numbers throwing up the odd big weight.
Sycamore has been busy every morning with early risers getting the pick of the best pegs, the pleasure fishing has been good and the top match weights have been in excess of 100lbs. Eery will keep you busy with plenty of fish to keep the bites coming, it has not been favoured as much on the rover as the fish are smaller but there are still a few “monsters” in there and the best match weight has been over 80lbs. Canal is brimmed full of F1’s and if you get the feeding right you will be on a fish a chuck, because of its location it is not pleasure fished on a large scale but if you fancy a quiet day with plenty of bites this is the lake for you and on a match you’ll soon have a nice bag of fish if you have a bit of space around you. Acorn has given us some top match weights this year not only in the festival but on our residents matches too, the method has been working well on this lake but don’t forget to take your wellies as it is a bit muddy! Pats and Nelsons have also got off to a flying start this season especially in Pats where the catfish have been coming out earlier than expected and we have had a suspected record cat out already that bottomed the scales at 66lb, our current record is 66lb 12oz so we will have to invest in some new scales to record the exact weight on the next time it is caught! There have also been cats coming out of Nelsons the biggest weighing in at 35lb. The carp fishing has been steady on the specimen lakes, and so far it has been one of the busiest years we have had for specimen anglers, the record for the biggest carp this year is 28lb 6oz from Pats and on Nelsons the biggest carp out was weighed in at 24lb.
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We are excited as we have 2 new events coming up shortly as well as our heat of the Maver Pairs, on the 16th May we have our first Spring Classic festival sponsored by Garbolino and our first ever pairs festival is coming up on the 13th June, the Parkdean Pairs sponsored by Preston Innovations is being held over four days Monday – Thursday and the spaces are being snapped up, if you are interested in this or would like more information please give us a call on 01726 862 526. Also in July we have our annual ladies festival and this year there are already more entrants than last year, so again any female anglers out there are more than welcome to join us so give us a call.
This year White Acres have taken over the lease on some local lakes called “Trewaters” these lakes are a great boost to our profile as we are able to use them in the festivals and this year will see the return of the Saturday open that we will be holding weekly on this venue, if you are interested in fishing a Saturday match please give the shop a ring before you arrive to book in. Also new for 2009 we are allowing this lake to be booked out for private matches so if there is a large group of you coming down and fancy a match amongst yourselves give Clint a ring and you can hire the lake for the day. The venue has matured over the winter months and with more matches being held on there and more feed going into the lake it has really boosted the fishing.
I hope you will all have notice the new layout of the web site, we have had great feedback with people saying it is now a lot easier to navigate their way around the site, it still needs a bit of work but in the next few weeks all the pages should be updated and we should have a bigger picture gallery. Also we have set up our own facebook page on the web so if any of you use this site don’t forget to add us as a friend, you will find us under “WhiteAcres Fisheries”, we have spent the last couple of weeks uploading hundreds of pictures to our page from now right back until 2003, if you do spot a picture of yourself please tag it and if you take any pictures whilst on holiday with us don’t forget to tag us in them.
The rest of the year is looking busy for us but there is still limited holiday availability on most months so if you haven’t booked your holiday I would suggest you do this pretty soonish!
Right enough from us, thanks for reading this update and hopefully see you all soon.
Regards,
