My last match was back in April with Pawlett, at Apex, it fished hard as predicted, I dnw'd chucking back a few pound of hard earned silvers.
Anyway, today at Acorn. I had booked-out of this but re-joined the list yesterday.
Arriving early enough (12pm draw, fish 13:15-18:15 ish....). Pleased to see a few guys I hadn't for a while, some decent anglers in attendance including a fair few regulars at the venue. 21 fishing so 3 sections of 7 split across the venue rather than in a line.
I looked at the lake, plenty of semi-spawning fish, mixture of silvers and carp, but not in great numbers, pegs 40, 6 and off the point of the island from pegs 9 to 13 had loads of fish moving.
The pegs that I didn't want were 3, 24 and 26 as I don't like 24 or 26 and although 3 can occasionally be ok, pegs 1 and 5 often slow the fish in moving through to peg 3.
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| Acorn Peg 3.... |
At my peg I saw it was a real area of PSV guys, Steve Sewell on peg 1, Matt Williams on peg 3, Paul Preston and Ade Crawley on 34 and 33 and Keith Ray on peg 36. But you can see a good amount of the lake from my vantage point so I could see how I seemed to be doing.
4 rigs assembled, 1 for my margins (mostly left, downwind). 1 for 2+2 off to my left in line with the point of the island, this rig also suited topkit distance in from.
A banded pellet rig for across in 12 inches of water. Lastly, but unused, was a rig for around 2m off the far bank in 3ft of water.
Bait was a few pints of maggots, some 4 and 6mm hard pellets, expanders and groundbait. I did have some alternative 8mm pellets for the band, just in case I fancied a change.
At the all-in I began across hoping for a few early mug fish, but that never happened, actually this spell was the calmest of the day and after an hour spent, mostly across, I had 2 small carp, 2 skimmers and couple roach and a baby carp. Elsewhere it was peg 40 and 36 who set the early pace, but Mark Bromsgrove who on p38 and in my section was doing ok, nobody else looked to be doing much.
The second hour saw the wind increase in strength and was going directly right to left and holding a pole at 8m was hard enough at times let alone fishing across, but there was signs of fish in the area across. I spent this hour fishing maggots both off to my left at 2+2 and on the topkit in front, this gave me a few nice stamp roach, some perch and a couple 3oz carp, but it was bites at a time when most were not getting much action.
As the day progressed the fishing got tougher for pretty much everyone except Keith Ray whom had caught consistently all day, peg 40 got off to a flyer but he slowed in the second half of the match.
I had to keep switching between the left edge and the 2 maggot lines (2+2 left and topset in front) to pick up fish of various species, when the wind dropped enough to venture across I would get a bite, but this was only an option on and off throughout the second half of the 5hr match.
One of my blond moments came when I had an 7 or 8lber just sat on the surface waiting to be netted, but my mind switched off and I just sat looking at it not even touching the landing net handle, when I went to grab it the hook pulled.....numpty. I also dropped a perch late on, maybe 12oz, it ended back in the lake.
My 3rd and 4th hour saw me put 4 or 5 carp in the net and some silvers including a couple nice skimmers and a few perch. Steve and Matt on pegs 1 and 5 were struggling. There is not really too much to talk about, trying to snare a few extra fish was hard going. With just a little over an hour left Matt Williams began to catch a few lumpier carp down his left edge and put maybe 7 or 8 decent fish in the net which boosted his net, but he wasn't in my section.
The final 60 minutes was a little better, well that is retrospective of the day when using the word better, I put 4 more carp in the net, 3 from the left edge and 1 across. My clicker showed 41lb at the all out, plus I reckoned on 8lb of silvers.
I packed up and waited for the weigh in, pretty much everyone had struggled and there was a dnw in Rich Lovering.
The scalesmen arrived and weighed Steve on peg 1, he managed 20lb. Then my silvers weight 8lb and a few ounces, my carp boosted me to 50lb 1oz. Matt then had 67lb 8oz, 40lb of which came late on.
I left the scales to do their job and caught up with them when they got to Gabe, the venue expert managed 40lb before Ade and Paul Preston had 47lb+ and 25lb+ from each side of the bridge.
Then came Keith, he almost did 100lb but alas he totalled 95lb 12.5oz for what looked to be top weight on the day. He was in my section. Next was Mark Bromsgrove, he was also in my section, he was admitting to 40-something pounds, I reckoned he had more but he said he had silvers. He managed 49lb 9oz.
Last to weigh was peg 40, he had flown out of the blocks at the start and slowed down late on but still managed a nice net of 90lb and a few ounces.
So an okay day, the wind being the main preventative in me catching a few more, in hindsight I could have got a little method feeder rod set up to chuck across, but that isn't my idea of fun. 2nd in section and £60 in the pocket means I have got a decent start and my entry fee returned.
Back in 2 weeks for round 2.
Next up is Sunday's match, covering for Emma Drysdale, at Trinity Woodlands for a short pole match (topkit plus 3 sections)
Until then, have fun and take care.
Lee
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