Just go down and learn is my advise,If you draw on a few you’ll catch, first time there you prob get wasted but if u pick up once or twice count it as a bonus.Pegs on all venue’s are /can be so different apart from porth which is similar all way round apart from some area’s have skimmers sometimes,lot’s of fish some areas harder on other bit’s.

Hi Craigo, as Fordy says its virtually impossible to go through all the lakes but ill give youa rough idea.

Pollawyn will be skimmers and proper Carp averaging 5lb plus. Pole feeder and pellet waggler depending on where you draw. Depths from 2ft to islands to 8ft on the pole. Baits are pellets or meat as far as im concerned.
Trelawney is mainly Carp of all sizes although they run to doubles. Feeder pole and pellet waggler. Depths from 3-6ft plus. Bait is pellet meat or corn.

Python is silvers, plus F1’s crucians, tench and a few Carp but they are bonus fish as opposed to the norm. Methods are feeder and pole. Pellets and casters tend to score best.

Gwinear Carp plus skimmers. Feeder and pole in the main. Depths from 2-10ft.
Bait wise, pellets, casters, corn and maybe worms.

Porth. Small skimmers and Roach dominate, you will need a platform plus waders unless you draw peg 77. Pole or feeder are the two best methods with worms, casters and maggots scoring highly. Depths from 6-10ft plus. 20lb is always a big weight on here with 15lb often winning sections. Its a real proper fishing venue and definitely takes some sorting out.

Bolingey is the best days fishing of the week in my opinion. Pretty much all Carp with some huge submarine like ghosties up to 20lb about. Method wise pole, feeder and pellet waggler depending on where you draw. Bait is pretty much up to you but meat, pellets and hemp are what i tend to go with. Depths from 6ft to well over 10ft depending on which arm you draw in.

Hope that helps. If you see me in the morning of the draw give me a shout and ill tell you what i know.

I’m breaking my festival virginity on the Preston Festival the following week after somehow winning a silver match (I only do commercial fishing on WA holidays), my aims are not come last each day; learn as much as I can and to enjoy it. Having not fished offsite of WA waters I’m hoping to also take advantage of the offer above, I’m getting more nervous day by day, is there wooden spoon to go for?

On the white acres subject im going next year for the van den eynde festival, also my first visit to WA, did a quick list of stuff im gonna need to take etc. Shocking amount of tackle needed for a week, good job i drive a long wheel base van for my job.

Steve

I think the more stuff you take the more confusing it gets,just keep it simple and do what you do best imo.
When you get down there you will hear chatter about this bait and that method sending you right into a mess and if you take it all in you will have a brain fart in the matches.
When all is said and done start on the tip and feed the pole,if people are catching on the pole right away you can switch fast if not your ahead of most by starting on the tip

I’ve done a fair bit of this Festival stuff now and this is my advise, do what your good and and remain completely positive and focussed on winning a SECTION not a match. Keep things simple and to the point but be prepared to change accordingly, however don’t mess with what you dont know, if you draw bad just keep it in your head that your still fishing for a section. Being positive doesn’t always mean feeding aggressively either, you can do very well at White Acres without feeding very much at all – particularly on the Match lake (Pollawyn) in the bad sections. Take plenty of worm with you for an Autumn Festival as you often need some skimmers to bump your weight up, again on match lake and also Gwinear (At Gwinear you might want to fish exclusively worms in the tougher parts, it really can be a grueler) You’ll also need a full Kilo for Porth Reservoir.

Some excellent advice here…
Why the need for platform & waders at Porth? how far can / do you have to wade out?
TonyC, how much worm would you take for a 5 day festival?

Slopes,ive fished a couple of festivals but im not in the same class as Steve or Tony.Porth is a big resevoir and the pegs are crap so that explains your platform and waders, fish out in the water like ireland, you dont have to wade out too far last April i didnt use my platform i double extended my milo legs and just had one module with the gel seat to sit on it was spot on with the bouns of side trays and feeder arm off the box.Worms your limited to a kilo a day so 5 kilo.Good luck mate hope you top my 150th position out of 180 anglers!

Ant I don’t think Slopes will need as much as 5 kilos I only usally take 2 and 1 of those is for Porth

Slopes look at what carpmagic has posted above he only mentions worms for Porth and Gwinear.
The main baits will be pellet, meat, corn, hemp and casters plus maggot for Porth

Good luck in the festival hope to see you there, I’ll be one of the many drunk ones

I was just thinking tony slopes will kick himself if hes on polly and they start catching on worm or somewhere else,after all you are allowed 1 kilo of worm as well as your bait allowance.

If you’re on Acorn or Trelawney take casters. Fish them down the edge. This caught well last week.

We use worm alot for my local waters so I think i’ll err on the side of caution and take the 5kg knowing that I can use it when I get back, I usually get through almost a kilo a week at the mo. Thanks again for the advice.

Take it slopes its not included in your 8 pt bait limit,if i remember correctly your allowed 1 kilo of worm, half a bag of bread and a kilo of groundbait besides your 8 pt limit i dont think it will do any harm, not that it did me any good lol enjoy yourself mate its excellent craic.

Additional bait over and above the 8 pints is A/ up to one kilo of worms. B/ up to 2 kilos of ground bait. C/ up to 1/2 a loaf of bread.

some people caught on the worm when I was there but most caught on the banded pellet on the pole. 4 -6mm were favourite

I hadn’t realised that in the festivals you are only allowed 1 pint of your own choice of pellet with the rest of the 4 pint allowance having to be WA Cornish Bagging Pellet. So my forward planning of bulk buying the stuff has backfired. However, I can use my own choice of pellet in the Silver winners week I have been told. So many rules !!!!
One rule is that all bait has to have been prepared before getting to your peg, so you have to mix your groundbait and weigh 2kg (5kg for Porth) to take to your peg since a standard 2kg bag will weigh more once mixed which would put you over the limit…. I like my river fishing… it’s so much simpler 🙂

Draw 9.30 Fish 12 – 5

Craigo,you may well need a braid
reel dont know if its allowed now but 2 years ago its what you needed at porth.

Slopes – You’ll probs want 3 kilos to be save for a weeks festival in the Autumn mate. Just incase it goes tough.

Craigo – Porth is awesome mate, if you can handle the platform and gb etc it’s a really nice venue to fish with plenty of bites. Ball the pole line at about 11m and fish casters or worm over it, might be worth chucking the tip out for 15mins at the start to see if you can snare a slab – if you do, stick with it, if not get on the pole and just “bit it”. In the Autumn you can do well by fishing a top 4 or 5 to hand feeding hard small balls of GB with caster in for a load of small roach, and I mean loads – 200+. Personally I really like it there, and certainly sorts the men from the boys on those festivals.

Slopes it is 2 kilo of dry g/bait as far as i know.

Blunty you are correct the G/B allowance is dry
Its the pellet meat and corn that should prepared before going to your peg

Craigo & Slopes
Kirsty should have sent a letter with the rules, bait allowances and format to you by now

All the formats have been sent with the rules etc… If you haven’t received them email me and i’ll mail you a copy over. Cheers, Kirsty

Thanks Kirsty I got the rules etc yesterday, I just wrongly read it that the G/B had to be pre-prepared also. Thanks for all the responses and good luck craigo and anybody else from here for next week, I’ll be watching the daily results for any more clues.