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White Acres has a great reputation for match festivals that attract many of the top names in the match fishing world and we were arriving just after the Spring Festival that had produced some real heavyweight catches.The weather had turned much colder with a nasty North Easterly wind chilling all the lakes. This was not good news but we were determined to fish and bag up.We arrived at White Acres at about 4.30 p.m. having travelled about 250miles from our Ashford, Middlesex home. It had been a good journey with no hold ups so we were not tired. We quickly checked in and unloaded into our 8 berth, centrally heated caravan. Having not stayed in a caravan for over 40 years, I was impressed by how much they had advanced. Ours had everything that we required including a phone, T.V. and video.By 6.30 p.m. we were fishing on the 18 peg Eerie lake which is one of the more established lakes. The lake gets its name because of the good head of ghost carp that it contains. I was told that in the festival it had produced a magnificent 18lb 4oz ghost carp in a match. That is the biggest ghost carp I ever heard of being caught in any match. Possibly a record match-caught ghost carp?We decided to fish completely different techniques to judge the best techniques more quickly. We worked as a team. Virginia was to fish in close using her favourite style. Her tackle consisted of an 11ft powerful float rod with a 1.25lb test curve with her “Purist” centre pin that was loaded with a fine 81b b.s. co-polymer line that was the thickness of a conventional 41b b.s. line. The float was a robust, yet sensitive, pole float with just a number 4 shot down the line that was tied direct to a size 6 barbless hook which she baited with a large lump of trout pellet paste. She fed the close-in swim with three handfuls of 6mm trout pellets and then sat well back to fish no more than 18 inches from the waters edge. We had seen how matchmen disposed of any remaining bait after a match. Generally it is thrown in by the waters edge, attracting the fish close in where Virginia was hoping to catch them.Before I was able to set up my waggler outfit, Virginia was into her first fish. She quickly bullied the fish out of the swim causing the minimum of disturbance to play the fish out in open water to her right. The fish turned out to be a lovely common ghost carp of about 91b.I dismissed this fish as a fluke and continued to set up my waggler outfit to fish out by the island. As this was a carp lake, I set up a powerful 13ft rod with similar power to the rod that Virginia was using. I needed that extra length as I was fishing much further out. Instead of my normal centre pin, I used a fixed spool reel loaded with the same co-polymer line that Virginia was using in close. I used a 4AA-plus straight-spliced peacock waggler with the shot locking it in position. I set the float at about 18 inches deep to fish a pellet up in the water. The pellet was placed in a rubber band that was hair rigged to a size 10 hook by the knotless knot.I catapulted out pellets at regular intervals before casting my waggler right up tight to the bushes on the island. The float hit the target and immediately it went under. “I am in” I called out to Virginia. “That’s good, I am just netting my third fish” Virginia replied as she slid her net under another good sized ghostie. It went on like that for the next couple of hours until it got too dark to see. The majority of the carp were mirrors and commons but there was a good proportion of ghosties in both our catches.We went back to the caravan and had a take-away from the central block before going to the club for a few drinks. It had been a very pleasant start to the holiday.The following morning, we got up at about 8 a.m. and decided to have a cooked breakfast in the club house before going down to the fishing tackle shop near the lakes. We explained to Clint Elliot in the tackle shop, what we wanted to do for this feature and he gave us some very good accurate advice. Clint is a top match angler who really tries his best to make sure that holiday makers get the best out of the venue.We decided that we would try for tench on Jenny’s lake which is a long five acre pool stocked with a wide variety of species including tench, bream, crucian, ghost and ordinary carp. We set up on the bank opposite the lodges to fish much finer, as this is not predominantly a carp lake. Basically we both fished with centre pins loaded with 3lb b.s. line to a 2lb trace. I set up with a 13ft float rod whilst Virginia, being only 5ft tall, used a shorter 11ft model. Again Virginia fished down the edge on a pole float with a size 12 hook to a hair rigged banded pellet with a 6mm trout pellet as bait. I was going to fish about 12ft out from my rod top with a crowquill insert peacock waggler locked in position by 2BB, with just two number 6 shot down the line. My 6mm trout pellet being hooked the same as Virginia’s.We both fed with a few handfuls of trout pellet but I was fishing much further out. Again Virginia stuck close and never went much beyond 3ft from the edge.My first cast produced a small carp that was quickly followed by another slightly larger carp. Then the tench moved in, feeding very positively, giving a bite every cast. They were not initially very big, averaging about 12oz but as the session progressed, better tench to over 51b started to appear in the catch, together with the odd small crucian. The crucian were absolutely mint fin perfect averaging about 6oz. The swim then went dead before some bream to just over three pound put in an appearance. In all, I had well over 70 fish for an estimated 65lb plus catch.Virginia also caught consistently during the session but most of her fish were pasty sized carp with the odd tench. It was odd to see how carp dominated catches close in whilst further out it was nearly all tench. I also noticed that an angler fishing the pole nearby at 11 metres had a catch that mainly consisted of bream.The next day, we went off-site to fish Bolingey Lake which is now exclusively available to White Acres residents. It was about a 7 mile journey through lovely countryside to the venue with it’s locked car park. It is certainly a pretty venue. Again we decided to fish entirely different methods and opted to use the same tackle and tactics as we had used earlier in the week on Eerie lake back on the main site. Virginia fished on peg 8 whilst I fished next door in peg 7 casting out to the island to my left.Virginia fished in close on various paste baits and quickly started to catch carp to about 71b together with the odd tench to about 3lb. I was much slower starting and spent a fair bit of time baiting-up with pellet. My first cast produced a 6lb-plus mirror followed by another ten carp averaging just over 41b in successive casts. I was spending far more time playing fish than actually fishing or feeding my swim. As a consequence my feeding was suffering.Virginia was amazed at my catch rate and stopped fishing to feed for me so that I did not waste any time. I continued to catch at a terrific rate and landed 47 carp in the six hour session. They averaged just over 41b each with the best at 9lb 10oz. We conservatively estimated the bag at 188lb. We then returned to White Acres for a meal in the restaurant and some excellent entertainment in the club.The next morning, my arm was still aching from the previous days hauling at Bolingey and we had still not covered even half the lakes! We decided on a different plan of attack. We would fish the majority of the other lakes, missing out the specimen lakes, in one day. We would each catch two fish from a lake and then move on; starting on Sycamore with Virginia fishing close in on paste whilst I fished out on the waggler. We quickly caught a couple of carp each but stayed on a little longer as I had a nice 12oz roach. We had between us 7 carp, a 3lb tench and two roach before we moved on to Pollawyn Match Lake. Again we quickly had our quota of carp out. These ranged from about 41b to just under double figures.Our next move took us to Python Pool which is a 37 peg canalised lake that is ideal for pole fishing. However we stuck to our normal tactics to catch a mixture of smaller carp and tench to a couple of pounds.Then on to Trelawney which is another match lake holding 32 pegs. It was very cold on this lake as it was very exposed to the horrible NE wind. As the fish were smaller, we lightened off to catch smaller carp averaging a few pounds. As we were, by now, pretty cold, we went back to our caravan for a nice hot shower before going out to Newquay for a look around and an evening meal.The following day was a day off, touring the South Coast visiting some lovely little harbours and ports. We ended the day at Maylor Bridge near Falmouth visiting some friends who had just moved there from nearby Flushing. We had a great pub meal with them in their local pub before returning to White Acres.The following day was the residents roving match on White Acres which we covered to get some pictures. It was very well organised and I walked round with Clint Elliot for the weigh-in. I was most impressed – every angler had caught a fair bag regardless of swim with a top bag of 102lb from Pollawyn peg 20. As teachers, we were both most impressed with the encouraging manner Clint and his team dealt with customers weighing-in. Clint and his team were most tactful in giving advice on tactics and fish handling. They are certainly a very special team that work very hard to ensure that the customers get the best from their stay.Whilst I was talking to some of the match anglers and photographing a nice golden tench from Sycamore, Virginia took her tackle to fish “Pats Pool”. This is a specimen water containing both carp to over twenty pounds and cats which by now must reach 401b. As it had been so cold I had not bought any Kryston Quick Silver for trace for catfish. This meant that Virginia was forced to fish for just carp. Again she fished close in and within less than 90 minutes had had a low double figured carp. She called me over to photograph it before packing up as it was so cold.Despite the cold, Pats Pool had produced several catfish at night. One angler had two twenty-pound catfish that week, which is very surprising as the temperatures were low. Therefore I would advise any one visiting the venue to remember their catfish gear.The following day we were only left with Nelson’s Lake to complete our tour of all the lakes. However Nelson’s Lake had been split into two. The first half was a specimen lake with a mixture of ghost, mirror and common carp to 23lb. Virginia and I fished close in on paste baits over trout pellets. Again there was that cold NE wind making it rather unpleasant fishing. However after about an hour and a half, Virginia had a bite and struck into a nice common of just over 14lb. This left only the pleasure side of Nelson’s lake to complete our task. We therefore moved onto the other half of the lake and changed to lighter tackle but used the same in-close tactics. I placed four handfuls of trout pellet close-in and fished with a pole float with trout pellet paste as hook bait over the feed. My first cast produced a bite that resulted in a very deep bodied mirror carp with terrific shoulders. Its girth was larger than its length and would in time make a very big fish. It was only about 61b and was followed by another similar shaped fish.Virginia then started to catch similar shaped fish. We both started to bag up. I had had over 14 carp averaging over 5.5lb for an estimated 80lb whilst Virginia had, with her larger common carp out of the specimen lake, a similar total bag weight. To be honest we were both getting very cold and were pleased to pack up.In all, it had been a great weeks fishing with some terrific bags. If it had been warmer, I would have expected even heavier bags.This is certainly the venue if you want 1001b bags of carp with good entertainment for the whole family. This is a very large site with over 200 caravans, plus lodges and touring visiting caravans with hook ups. This means that the owners can justify having terrific facilities on site, such as a takeaway, shop, swimming pool, sauna, tackle shop, restaurant, pool tables, and children’s attractions with first class entertainment for all age groups.Although we covered all the lakes in a week, we did not do justice to them all. To cover all lakes properly it would take at least two weeks.Bill and Virginia Rushmer

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