Catch – 21 Carp, 4 Skimmers, 2 F1
Weather – Frosty start. Mostly bright & sunny.
Water Temp – 14.1c – 14.8c
Match – Pole Only Series – 6th out of 28 overall (2nd out of 9 – section)
The 2nd round of the Paul Frairs series meant it was my turn to be on Acorns Paddock Lake, hence the recent visits. At the draw Paul had to announce that 4 or 5 people rang during the week to say they couldn’t fish, which is fair enough because replacements were found, but then 2 more didn’t turn up on the day. If these people had to organize matches, I can guarantee they wouldn’t, not turn up again. I don’t understand why you pay £50 to fish series, then just don’t turn up (unless it’s emergency).
Anyway, back to the match. Our section, would be on the best part of Paddock Lake, so hopefully a few fish would show, however scrapping ice off the car this morning and the lake has been hammered this week with matches on most days I expected a difficult match. Fortunately there wasn’t many poor draws in this section and was quite happy with p36, although results during the week suggested it had gone off the boil from previous weeks, with top weight being about 50lb.
As you can see from the photo, I had the pump in the left hand corner, as well as the corner of the island opposite. Plumbing around revealed really shallow water by the island (the water level was still down) and it was the same under the platform to my right peg 35 (hopefully I’ve got my pegging right this time, before Joe tells me off again ;¬)). Down the track was surprisingly deep with 5ft between the pump and the corner of the island, but it was slightly shallower to my right which is where I hoped to pull in a few skimmers from the gap. However my gut feeling was these swims would be either too deep or too shallow, so fortunately when plumbing up in the left hand corner revealed about 2½ft of water.After 90mins I thought the wheels had fallen off with only a skimmer and an F1 from my right hand down the track swim, whilst everyone was catching particularly those on the island (pegs 1, 3, and 5). The left hand down the track swim only produced a few liners and as suspected confirmed what I thought about the depth, so I stopped feeding the swim never to be tried again. In the meantime I had kept pinging 6mms to the island and meat by the pump.
After seeing a fish roll by the pump it was time to give it a go and 45mins later I had 7 carp on meat, which cheered me up. The rest of the match was a case of rotating between the pump, the island, down the track and the right hand platform. The island only produced 1 small carp on 8mm pellet all match, as did the right hand platform. The water was just too shallow for the fish to feed with any confidence. The track swim, only produced a few more silvers, but I just couldn’t pull those skimmers into the swim, probably because it was a bit too narrow for them to settle.
So the majority of my fish came from the pump swim. With 30mins left, I was sure I was still behind 4 or 5 anglers, and then I had a run of 6 fish from the pump. The last fish being my best weighing 6-15 and it was just as well I put it in my 3rd net. If I hadn’t it would have pushed me over the 70lb net limit, by a pound.
As we were packing up, I felt that Rich Lovering on p5 would win which he did with 108lb, catching on various baits and I thought it would be close with Gary Bewdell on p1, but he only weighed 43lb. apparently he lost a load. Fortunately my fish were a better stamp than normal, which according to the locals isn’t a surprise for this peg. On reflection a bit of strange match. I probably only had about 2-3hrs of activity, whilst the rest of time was a bit boring – not that I’m complaining.
1st 108-2 – Rich Lovering – Paddock 5
2nd 100-10 – Rod Wootton – Plantations 19
3rd 100- 0 – Lance Tucker – Plantations 8
4th 80- 8 – R Hentley – Plantations 27
5th 74- 9 – Lewis Walker – Plantations 28
6th 73-14 – Ken Rayner – Paddock 36
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