Acorn Series, 2nd round, 21-04-18

The second match in this series and after my 2nd last in section in the 1st match I needed a 1st or 2nd in section to at least keep a bit of hope going forward.
Arrived in plenty of time with the wife in tow, had my lunch, a 3 quid Tesco meal deal, and nattered to Matt Williams before I realised the draw was under way and with only 3 balls left in the bag when I told to the missus to pick mine, well her hand is as consistent as mine with peg 28 my home for the day. Certainly not a peg anyone would pick any of the time, so I figured it was series over as I was in with 3 bridge pegs and some other decent pegs. But I had to give it a go.

Peg 28, Acorn Paddock.

The weather was meant to give us a dry day, which was not the case as after an hour the rain came and stayed for an hour-ish, then as we packed up it was trying to return along with it's mates Thunder and Lightning.
On setting up the lake was calm and my peg had plenty of fish present, which raised my hopes.
I assembled 5 rigs on my fave DT Floats patterns, pingers and RBS open water floats.
But I only caught on 2 rigs all day, a shallow pellet rig which was set up for across where the bank looked to have collapsed, but luckily it plumbed up ok if a little too shallow.
The 2nd rig was identical but with a bare hook for maggots or corn, I couldn't get a fish down to either empty pegs or down the track throughout the day.
I had a pint of caster, 3 of maggots and some 4mm and 6mm pellets, oh and a few expanders and some corn.

The match began and it started well as I toss potted 4's over my banded 6mm pellet across to the far bank, 6 small carp in the first hour, 12lb on the clicker, but a nice start.....and that's how it stayed for the best part of the next 2.5hrs, only 1 foul hookier lost. Matt Roden around on peg 31 was doing ok after a quieter 1st hour and was well ahead of me, while Paul Nichols and Brian Slipper arounf to my right on pegs 24 and 26 were doing ok but were not in my section.
The wind had got up and was blowing away from me to the other end of the lake, possibly taking a lot of the fish with it.

I tried various things, even fishing for silvers, which I never even had 1 of all match.
A couple hours to go and I started getting a few more bites across and would find me getting 2 carp, not of any sensible size though, then nothing for a spell before a couple more fish and another quiet spell.
I decided to shallow up my bare hook shallow rig to the 4" hooklength plus float depth and try and mug a few, but as it turned out I managed a spurt of 3 landed and 1 lost carp tight in to the near bank at top kit distance.

In to the last hour and my bites had dried up again, only adding 1 carp during this spell as the cloud moved in.
My clicker showed 45lb in 1 net and a single 2lber in the second which went back into the 1st net. I was looking at last in section, unsurprisingly. I could see Matt had more, I guessed 70lb and the 2 bridge pegs had more and I expected the car park pegs 36, 38 and 40 to have done miles better.

With the car loaded it was a long wait for the scales, so a bit of a chat to some guys and I also listened to the closing stages of the footy as Man Utd beat Spurs to get to the FA Cup final.
Anyways when the scales got to me I reckoned on 40-something pound, but surprisingly I had 57-14 which even more surprisingly beat 1 in the section. So another 2 points and series over.

Maybe I will draw a decent peg in the series going forward as the match gave a few 100lb+ nets to 150-something being the top 2 weights on the day.
Barry Richards beat Bob Gullick in my section with 132lb to 128lb from pegs 38 and 40.
Rich Lovering won the day with 154lb from peg 6, Kev Perry had 151lb from peg 11.

Next up for me was the Apex match today (22-4-18).
Until then, take care.
Lee