06/04/14 - Acorns - Paddock

Weight - 12lb 0oz (6lb 11oz - silvers)
Catch - 12 Skimmers, 2 Carp
Weather - Windy! Mostly cloudy, with occasional shower
Match - Pole Only rd 1 - 25th out of 30, 1st out of 10 - silvers section

The first round of the Acorns Pole only series and I don’t think anyone was particularly looking forward it, a) because of the forecast strong wind and b) the venue has been fishing hard.

 

For those that don’t know Clevedon AC now rent the water from Acorns, paying a sizable rent for the next 3 years. As such the club charges per lake instead of per peg, which meant Paddock Lake cost £180 (Campbell is only £120 and a far better lake, admittedly with fewer pegs) which will be too expensive for most clubs and will no doubt put off many club booking. This also meant all 30 anglers were on Paddock which would be tight, instead of being spilt with the “dog bone” lake. So 3 sections of 10 and the sensible decision was taken to the try and put the best and worst pegs into the same section to make each section as fair as possible, which isn’t easy.

 

With the strong wind no one wanted to be on the straight or on the island and I was absolutely gutted to pull peg 2, which is a proper rank draw and combined with the wind blowing across me I knew I was in for a hard day. The only consolation was pegs 2,3 & 4 on the island were in the same section as pegs 13-19 on the straight, which would be the hardest section of the 3 with p19 being the only peg with a spare peg.

 

At least I could see the whole the section opposite and keep an eye on how things were going, but my expectation was to spend most the match hoping for a few silvers. Mike Nichols tried to cheer me up saying he recommended to Chris not to put in p2 – great!

On the all in micros/groundbait/caster was deposited at 5m and micros/groundbait at 11m at the bottom on the shelf, plus a few pellets on top the shelf hoping for an early carp.

 

Starting against by the island I hooked a carp after 5mins, but it fell off as I was shipping back – bugger. In the strong wind it was difficult to get any decent presentation and I was soon fishing the 5m & 11m lines, with a 0.75g rig & .10 & 20 silverfish maggot hook and single maggot. After 2hrs I only had 2 skimmers to show for my efforts and really questioning signing up for this league. Fortunately everyone seemed to be struggling, although a few carp were being caught along the straight, particularly Mark Bartlett on p18.

 

I had kept feeding a nugget of micros every 15mins into the 5m & 11m swims, whilst pinging pellet across for later. As the match progressed a few more skimmers came from the 11m line and a swirl over the far bank prompted a look with the shallow rig. I managed 1 carp which was hooked properly and a decent skimmer, but also foul hooked 4 carp, 3 of which came off straight away, but the 4^th came off as it neared the net. Strangely the pegs either side of me had a couple of carp at the same time, before none of us could buy a bite after this flurry of activity. Obviously a shoal was just swimming through.

 

With 90mins to go I was really struggling for bites again and with more carp being caught along the straight any section pickup was looking distant. However I hadn’t seen many silvers being caught, except for Charles Barnes on p19 who had a 3lb tench, but I hadn’t seen him catch much else. So with nothing to lose, decided to feed in a full cup of groundbait, micros and caster at 5m, simply because it was easier to present here rather than at 11m which got a smaller top up.

 

The 5m line produced 5 more skimmers and a carp, which proved handy. Come the weigh in I beat the 2 other pegs on the island in my section, but with carp showing along the straight 7^th in section was probably the best I could have hoped for and the silvers section win was a welcome bonus.

 

The wind definitely affected the fishing today with the sheltered pegs producing the better weight. Next week it will be my turn for the better section (pegs 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 33, 34 & 40).

 

1^st 43- 8 – Andy France - p25

2^nd 41-15 – Bob Gullick - p34

3^rd 39- 2 – Mark Bartlett – p18

4^th 38- 7 – Lewis Jones – p23

5^th 38- 0 – Kev Perry – p21

6^th 33- 8 – Mike Nichols – p40

 

Silvers

1^st 14- 8 – Andy Gard – p33

2^nd 10-10 – Mike Nichols – p40

3^rd 10- 2 – Paul Faires – p28

4^th 6-11 – Ken Rayner – p2

5^th 4-13 – Charlie Barnes – p19

6^th 4-10 – Chris Fox p14/Paul Casson p17