Weight - 52lb 1oz (10lb 4oz - silvers)
Catch - 14 Carp, 34 Skimmers, 1 Tench
Weather - Cool start. Bright & sunny, with a slight breeze
Match - Open - 8th out of 16 (2nd - silvers)
Revision for my final financial services exam has meant no fishing for 2 weeks, because I really don't want to be taking a 3hr written exam for a second time, so I had to really concentrate and the fishing took a back seat. The exam was on Monday 15th and I am quietly optimistic, so keeping my fingers crossed when the results are released on 9 November.
Today I decided to attend the popular Saturday Open at Acorns and with 16 anglers we were well spread around the lake. One of the nice things about Acorns, other than the fact you can park behind most pegs, is there website which is kept up to date with match results, which revealed peg 40 is the form peg over the last 2 months. Alas I found myself on p15, which did win the silvers on Tuesday, but other than that hasn't featured too much recently.
On the drive down the temperature gauge dropped from 7c to 5c and coupled with the bright flat conditions, I wasn't really expecting the skimmers to feed in any numbers.
With plenty of room, the anglers either side were on 12 & 18, I decided to fish 12m left and right down the track feeding 3mms via a toss pot to my left and 4s to my right by catapult. On the all-in I went straight across to the far bank sedges where I had seen some movement, feeding a small amount of yellow atomic cloud & pellet, with corn on the hook. After 30mins I had 3 carp for 10lb before they disappeared.
I had kept both down the track swims topped up and kicked off down the left soon catching small skimmers on 4mm expander. The positively fed right hand swim, produced fewer, but slightly better skimmers up to 12oz.
The match was spent rotating left and right, catching skimmers with the occasional carp, mostly on 4mm expander. In an attempt to target the carp, I tried hard pellet and corn, but soft pellet was definitely the best on the day.
Despite feeding pellet to the far bank all match I only managed another 2 small carp. I had also been feeding towards the pallets, caster & corn to my left and pellet & corn to my right. The right margin produced 3 carp, whilst the left margin didn't produce any.
I knew I had beaten the anglers around me, in fact Eddie and I were the only ones to weigh-in on the straight. I also knew I was unlikely to frame, which meant I was relying on my skimmers for a pick up. As it was my 10-4 was a little less than I thought and I scrapped 2nd in the silvers.
1st 124- 6 - S O'Toole - p40
2nd 112-14 - Mike Owen - p9
3rd 103- 8 - Eddie Wynn - p22
4th 86-12 - Rich Lovering - p2
5th 75- 5 - Andy France - p4
6th 69-10 - Andy Gard - p6
Silvers
1st 17-11 - Dave Wride - p36
2nd 10- 4 - Ken Rayner - p15
No comments:
Post a Comment