Acorn Open, 25/7/15.

Well the weather was certainly different this last weekend, with Friday being absolutely awful with rain for pretty much 24hrs, or so it seemed. At least the lakes would get a welcome bit of freshness, how that'd affect the fishing I don't know.
Saturday was nice and warm and sunny, not great for fishing, before Sunday was mostly wet early on and getting more showery and windy as the day wore on.

So on Saturday I decided to fish a match on either Landsend or Acorn, plumping for Acorn as I hadn't fished it for months and months, plus I had the PSV match at Landsend on Sunday.
I arrived (with the wife in tow) in plenty of time for the draw, there was only 8 fishing though so a little disappointed by that, but onwards and upwards.
Mark Walsh was running the match in the absence of both Rob Fogg and Adie Baker, but he likes and does ok at the venue, plus he is a sound, kinda funny guy.
We had a couple regulars there including top guy and exceptional angler Giles Cochrane and Kev Jefferies, who also fishes with the PSV bunch every so often.

Mark pegged pegs 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 21, 24 and 28. Now I have only ever drawn up around peg 24 other than in the Clevedon Xmas match where I won the silvers with a solitary skimmer, I was on peg 1 that day. I really didn't want peg 24, or 28 really.
Lucky the draw was done and 24 had come out, I let the missus pick my peg and out came 13, not too bothered really and hoped for a nice day fishing.
For company I had Kev Jefferies on peg 15 to my left, Walshy around to my right on p10 and he had Giles further along on peg 8.

Acorn Paddock peg 13.

I had heard that caster was doing well and that weights could be from 50lb to 170lb winning, so pretty varied really. But with loads of space to hide I was sure that it'd be a trickier day.
I did bring some caster, maggots, a few micros, corn (meat is banned), 6mm pellets, expanders and some groundbait.

3 rigs were assembled. The first was a shallow pellet (then changed to maggot) rig for over between clumps of grass in around 2ft of water. The next rig was used tight in against my bank either side in around 12" of water and lastly I had a rig that would do for anywhere else in the swim, so I fed at topkit line, 11m and just off each empty peg either side, all were the same depth within an inch. I would feed each spot differently. All were on 0.18>0.14 hooklength and size 16 hooks.

Before the whistle Giles told me that he had been fishing, and doing ok, using caster and toss-potting the feed, re-feeding the same way every few minutes. He also said he rarely bothers going across these days.
Walshy would most likely be using paste!!

At the all-in I fed a small amount of corn and caster down to my left. Some micros and odd 6mm went in at 11m. I began feeding 4 or 5 casters and maggots on the topkit line and started down by empty peg 12.
After a while, probably 20 minutes I had a bite and lost a small foul hooked carp, but I soon had number 1 in the net, only a baby of 2lb but it saved me from a blank.
After the hour had passed myself and Kev hadn't had much more than 2 carp each, while Giles and Mark had done around 7 or so each, Giles even resorted to fishing across, lol.
The second and 3rd hour saw me put another 3 carp in the net, plus I had lost 3 or 4 foul hooked fish, maybe I had fed too much, maybe they were mooching around too much. But there was a lot of fish moving through, in fact further along past Kev we could see plenty of carp in and about pegs 17 to 19. The space was obviously attractive to our fish.

Into the last couple of hours of the match, myself and Kev were struggling and we couldn't even get many silvers. I started to feed tight to my own bank, on my right at topkit distance, plus I had fed 3/4 of the way to peg 14 tight in along the bank also. These are the areas I focused on for the remainder of the match and I had a run of F1's from the right and 3 or 4 carp from the left, plus a few foul hookers.
The match ended and I knew me and Kev hadn't done great with peg 6, the Giles (winner?), Walshy and peg 21 by the bridge doing better.

I packed my kit away and looked at my fish, probably 20lb of carp and 12/15lb of F1's. I looked at Kev's fish and he had maybe 30lb of carp and a 3 or 4lb of silvers, so similar to me.
We both tipped back once a glance at the weigh sheet showed 40lb, 135lb and Walshy's nr 70lb net, plus the guy on 28 reckoned on at least 80lb.
I didn't stay for the results, but I think Giles won.

It is a venue I should try and make more visits to and I do plan on doing so when I get a Saturday off every now and then, but only 8 fishing is a touch sad, but the previous few weigh sheets show more like 15 fishing at least so, hopefully it stays that way.

Until next time.
Lee.