Tuesday 19/06/2012 - Acorn Open - Paddocks

It was necessary to get up early as it was off to Acorn Fishery for their Tuesday open Match. Glad we were, as it was a perfect British start, sitting drinking my first cuppa of day looking at the scene pictured right, with all the promise of a beautiful summer’s day – at last.

After a breakfast at the fishery it was in to the ping pong ball bag (Ray Bazeley was draw master and has a thing about balls). As I was on holiday and it was going to be wall to wall sunshine I didn’t mind where I drew. As it happen this was a good tactic as out come peg 3. Happy with this as there are only three pegs in on the Island. Then Glenn Bailey arrived on peg 1 and started to spoil the day by moaning about his peg being crap. He wasn’t kidding me as I thought it was spot on (this might be a tactic of his). On peg 5 as company I had that nice man again Andy Shields, who is looking for a part time job to pay for his broken butt section! Both Martin and Mark both drew well next to Bridges’ pegs 22 and 34.

Still in the holiday mood it was out with the top four only to fish down the inside shelf and the LH margin. I set up for rigs a 4x14 Stainey (because it was flat calm) for the Skimmers and soft pellet, a paste float to fish over the Skimmer line later for Carp, a paste rig for the margin and a 4x12 jolly margin caster rig.

Acting on duff info I went all out for the Skimmers feeding two lines, 1 o clock and 2 o clock with wetted micro through the Kinder pot. After an hour I had six 6oz Skimmers. It wasn’t happening, whilst Glenn was catching 3lb Carp over to the far bank. I had been feeding casters in the margin so in I went with a single on the hook and had a run of Ronnie’s, Rudd, tiny Tench, three F1’s and a couple of 2lb Skimmers. I was enjoying myself when small 1 ½ lb Carp arrived. I caught about nine and tried the Skimmers again having been feeding micros over the RH swim and 4’s over the LH swims. The result was just two tiny skimmers from each line. So it was back in to the margin, this time with paste but still feeding the caster (all fish love this bait). First put in I had a 4lb Tench in perfect condition. Then a run of those small Carp again. Glenn was still catching 3lb Carp, so I decided to forget the Silvers and with two hours to go switched to the paste over the micro line. I landed nine quick Carp to six pounds, when the fizz started and a couple of Foul hookers escaped the net. I was strange (perhaps not) I could only catch once the fizzing  stopped, so it was feed (by hand – bigger spread) and into the margin until the fizzing stopped catch some more squeakers, then out on the paste until the swim went quite. With an hour to go a small carp jump out of my keep net – I nearly gave me a heart attack!!

This mornings breakfast suddenly met up with last nights curry and an uncomfortable half followed. I couldn’t get to the toilet because of disturbing peg 40 – Harry Muir - it was touch and go for a while!

Glenn (pictured right with his catch) was first to weigh and put 74lb on the scales – I thought he had beaten me hands down from his crap peg!!

I was next to weigh and put 15lb 8oz of Silvers (pictured right with the Tench) on the scales followed by 61lb 8oz of Carp for a total of 77lb. This left me fourth in the Silvers and second overall.

The match and the Silvers was won by Dave Wride (pictured lower right with the runner up) with 34lb 2oz of Silvers and 44lb 10oz of Carp from peg 24. Dave caught his fish on 4 and 6 soft pellet fished over micro and 4’s fished down the far shelf (where he suggested I fished and took no notice!)

Mark peg 34 – 28lb

Martin peg  22 - 52lb (7^th)

Full Result:

1.      Dave Wride 78-12-0 peg 24

2.      Mike Nicholls 77-0-0 peg 3

3.      Glenn bailey 74-0-0 peg 1

4.      Mike Owens 60-0-0 peg 14

5.      Andy France 59-04-0 peg 21

6.      Clive Richards 56-04-0 peg 6

Top Silvers:

1.      Dave Wride 34-02-0 peg 22

2.      Andy Gard 22-05-0 peg 30

3.      Mike Owens 17-06-0 peg 14