Sunday 02/05/2010 - Avon Angling Open - Acorn Fishery - Paddock Lake

Off to a new venue – Acorn Fishery – Paddock Lake. It’s only the second time it’s been fished on a Sunday, and my first outing here. Apparently this lake is destined to be one of the top match venues in the South West, see the attached article:

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/sport/New-match-lake-dream/article-1532400-detail/article.html

The weather conditions that welcomed us was atrocious, high gusting, freezing NE winds with the temperature in single figures. After breakfast in the fishery café I had a quick walk round (see picture right). I predicted peg 7 or 8 (approximately where I am stood taking the picture) would be a good peg draw – I wasn’t proven wrong.

I drew peg 15 which is over the far side across two bridges. (I thought bridges were designed to have a space between the water and underside - perhaps they are fixed pontoons). The pegs are yet to have platforms and currently have black gravel put down over the clay. I don't mind fishing from a natural bank, but gravel is pole unfriendly. As you do when you are not sure what to expect you set up for every options - which I did. As it happened I only needed two rigs: a 4x14 PB14 for over the far bank (not used much because of the wind giving poor presentation) and Colmic Series Top. This float is the Brother to the Jolly. Colmic take a 4x16 Jolly, fit a wire stem (not that crappy bendy wire either) and label them 4x14, then paint the body blue, hence Brother and Sister. I used this float at 5 metres for most of the day and I must say it worked really well in the gusting conditions very, very stable, picking up a gently tow. I didn't know what species I was fishing for so I started by kinder potting in mixture of caster, maggot held in by soft micro. On went double red maggot and I had a 6oz Perch straight off, followed by another of about 10oz. Looking in it's mouth I could see that he had been eating maggot, but no signs of caster even though I was feeding more of this, but what was surprising it had a lot of micro pellet in his throat! I then started to catch Carp to 3lb and during the first hour I had about 20lb in the net. I don't know what happened but for the next 5 hours I could only muster another 5lb (very similar pattern to Rip off' and Dean Mallin's match). I think because these are new fish they scare off back to the main shoal (peg 7, 8, 9) - safety in numbers. I weighed 5lb 1oz of Perch and 20lb of Carp for nowhere.

The match was won by Shaun Kitteridge (pictured right with a quality stamp of fish to 5lb) from peg 7 with 135lb 13oz. Shaun caught 25% of his fish short at five metres and the rest over to the far bank using soft pellet over micro pellet. Although Shaun had the wind off his back I don't think this was significant as the fish are tightly shoaled up at this end of the Lake.

The Silvers was won by Paul Faiers from peg 4 with 25lb. Paul caught on chopped worm, caster and maggot over chopped worm and caster feed. Paul had Perch and some decent Skimmers.

In conclusion of my first visit - What no Ronnies! Joking a side I think there is still a lot of work to be done here. I also believe the venue is very peggy as proved today with the weights coming from one end and next to the bridges. I will be surprised if it becomes the top match venue in the South West, but will be good for club matches. I hope I am proven wrong.

Full Result:

1. Shaun Kitteridge 135-13-0 peg 7
2. Rod Wotton 64-04-0 peg 11
3. Gary Wall 60-0-0 peg 30 (Bridge peg)
4. Martin Rich 51-08-0 peg 15 (Bridge peg)
5. Tim Ford 49-14-0 peg 5

6. Paul Faiers 49-06-0 peg 4

Top Silvers:

1. Paul Faiers 25-0-0 peg 4
2. Rod Wotton 19-07-0 peg 11