Wednesday, 2 April 2014

01/04/14 - Acorns - Paddock

Weight - 26lb 6oz
Catch - 11 Carp, 2 Tench, 1 Rudd
Weather - Bright & sunny. Light winds
Match - Open - 7th out of 18

With the forth coming Acorns Pole Only series coming up I thought it was about time I at least had a practice to see how it was fishing. So far the reports haven’t been good, with 30lb being a good weight and only 40-60lb needed to win, which is a contrast to last year when weights of 100lb started to show.
 
Upon seeing the lake for the first time since the summer there was a black algae bloom, but at least there appeared to be some fish moving around. It was quite a surprise to see 18 anglers for a mid weeker, obviously I wasn’t the only one thinking ahead to the weekend.
 
Peg 18 in the middle of the straight wasn’t what I wanted, since most weights have come from either the bridges or corners. Either side of me was Gabriel Skarba on p16 who does well down here and Harry Muir on the bridge p21. The other side of the bridge on p22 was Charlie Barnes. All I will say is you could easily mistake Harry and Charlie for an old married couple!
 
In previous years my peg was a good skimmer peg, so my intention was to target them at 6m and on the 2nd shelf off the island, feeding micros & 4s. Whilst I let that settle I went straight across to the far bank feeding 4s in the hope of a few early carp. After 90mins I had 6 on expander, but with no features to keep them, they disappeared.
 
Other than a couple of nips from small fish I didn’t have any fish down the track or off the second shelf. The only place I could get a bite was next to p19 pallet where I had been feeding caster, which resulted in 2 tench and a rudd.
 
During the last 90 mins I managed another 5 carp from the far bank to finish what was a boring day. I don’t know what is wrong with place. I don’t believe it’s a lack of fish, which seems to be the de-fault response to poor weights, because there were fish moving around at the beginning and towards the end of the match. Hopefully as the weather improves, so will the fishing, but I’m hardly excited about fishing the series.
 
Except for Mike Chapman on p24, which was the end peg today, my weight was the best along the straight, so I must have done something right, which is a positive, but it is difficult to compete with the feature pegs.
 
Apparently we have 30 maybe 29 anglers fishing the league and we will all be on Paddock Lake – time to get the camp bed out for the middle part of the match!
 
1st 59- 4 – Dave Wride – p33
2nd 41- 4 – Glen Bailey – p5
3rd 41- 1 – Lee Waller – p40
4th 35- 8 – Ray Bazeley – p10
5th 31-12 – S Rolf – p34
6th 28- 0 – Mike Chapman – p24
 
Silvers
1st 18- 0 – Charlie Barnes – p22
2nd 10-14 – Andy Gard – p31

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