Tuesday 24/07/2012 - Acorn Open - Paddocks

With my Granddaughters away for week’s holiday, I had a day off the baby sitting, so I sneaked off to Acorn Fishery for their very popular Tuesday open. Into the draw bag and out comes lottery ball number twelve. I was very happy with this peg as it on a bend offering plenty of room which would be crucial today under the blazing bright sunshine.

On peg 13 I had Andy Smith (pictured right sat in his car next to his peg assembling his traditional waggler) for company. When I see Andy I always think Bath AA. But of course he his now a Director of Amalgamation Limited and has been for more years than he was Secretary of Bath AA.

On a lighter note the weather has been scorching hot as it would be today, so it was a question of minimum clothes without getting sunburnt. An-Ton Page (pictured right) was modelling the latest men’s underwear – I suppose we will all be wearing them next year!! I was surprise he didn’t have Sensas emblazed on his backside.

My plan was to target the Silvers by starting on the Ronnie rig with caster for down the LH margin. In case this didn’t work I set up two paste rigs – one long at 3 metres and one in the margin over the caster line. So starting on single caster I had a 4lb Carp first and second put in – not what I wanted.  I then had a run of ten different species of Silver! However, none were of any size. I was interrupted by the odd Carp and after nearly four hours I foul hooked a Carp which bent the wire stem on my Ronnie rig into a U shape. Looking around there didn’t seem to be many Silvers being caught so with about 20lb of Silvers captured at the cost of half pint of casters and six Carp in one net. I decided to switch to the paste over the caster changing the loose feed to hard 4’s. Basically it was a Carp a bung until the end. I fed about ¼ pint of pellet.

As I didn’t add to my Silvers the weight stayed at 21lb 10oz. This put me second in the Silvers so some coin earmarked. I was surprised when my Carp took my total to a winning weight of 150lb 9oz. So, should I have fished for Carp from the off – probably, if I was a carp Slayer, that said you can’t do much better than win the match and have a Silvers second.

The Silvers was won by matey Dave Wride (pictured right with his net of “peas-in-the-pod” Skimmers) with 28lb 8oz from peg 24. Dave caught on meat and soft pellet.

 Full Result:

1.      Mike Nicholls 150-09-0 peg 12

2.      An-Ton Page 135-06-0 peg 15

3.      Chris Davis 107-0-0 peg 16

4.      Matt Tomes 93-08-0 peg 32

5.      Mike Chapman 91-07-0 peg 5

6.      Andy Gard 88-03-0 peg 4

Top Silvers:

1.      Dave Wride 28-08-0 peg 24

2.      Mike Nicholls 21-10-0 peg 12

3.      Dave Bacon 18-09-0 peg 30 (plus the biggest Tench award (2lb 8oz)