Saturday 25/08/2012 - Acorn Sponsored Open - Paddocks

I must admit I left it very late to book me and Bela into this match, with Bela making it in by the skin of his teeth – Friday morning in fact. I know Glenn Bailey was desperate to fish and he was well pissed-off (as was many others) when there was two no shows. I know one of our Coffin Dodgers Tom Newell didn’t make it, but had paid up front. I hope it wasn’t due to ill health.
 

After a Bev special breakfast (pictured right with the free spread she kindly laid on after the match – thanks Bev - nice ham), it was in to the draw bag where we were given a present from Cadbury Garden Centre – a Preston 3 pint bait box. With two ping-pong balls left I pulled peg 19, I wonder what the last one was. I wasn’t enamoured with the draw, as everyone I spoke to turn their nose up. That said it was the peg I drew on the inaugural match of the fishery.

 

Match organiser Mark Bartlett announced that the payout was:

Top three

Top two Silvers

Three sections of ten, paying one overall, one Silver.

 

Arriving at the peg I had decisions to make, looking along the section line I decide there were nine Anglers going for the Carp, which decided me to go for the Silvers for the section payout and if I was lucky enough I might get in to the top two Silvers.

 

I set up a Ronnie rig, a 4x16 jolly for the Skimmers to be fished down the track, a 0.5 gram paste float to be fished over the same line and a 0.3 gram paste float to be fished in the margin.

 

I did have an empty peg to my left, peg 20, however, it was up wind and because the strong wind was blowing in at me at 11 o clock it was going to difficult to fish this margin. After feeding half a pot of casters down the track (where I discovered that 20% were floaters) I started on the Ronnie rig, which accounted for nothing as the wind was buggering the presentation even though I had three back shot the float was moving too quick towards me. So it was out on the single caster where I needed to pimple the float well down to see a bite from the small Skimmers. I kept these coming on and off by kinder potting casters after every two fish, but because the casters wasn’t sinking fast enough the Skimmers were being disrupted by Carp. I stayed with this until the last hour when the swim died, so I potted in some CW&C which unfortunately had the effect of energised the Carp and small Perch. The wind changed completely around 100 degrees, so I switched back to the Ronnie rig with caster over caster and was completely battered by Carp landing twelve in the last 30 minutes.

 

My Silvers weighed in at 26lb 15oz and my Carp 31lb 15oz for a total of 58lb 14oz. As planned I won the section Silvers and as a bonus won the second overall Silvers for a half decent pick-up.

 

The match was won by Bob Gullick (pictured right) with 114lb 12oz from peg 40. Bob initially caught on hard pellet, later switching to soft pellet to keep the Carp coming. Then switched back to hard pellet in the last hour when the Carp switched on.

 

The Silvers was won by Craig Edmonds (pictured lower right) from peg 38 with 29lb 9oz. Craig caught on caster over caster down the track and didn’t have any Carp disruptor's, not netting one of the blighters.

 

I must say it was a well run match with the payouts well thought out – thanks to Mark Bartlett.

 

Finally I have to mention runner up Phil Harding who fell ounces short of winning, unlucky, especially as Phil went over the 70lb limit on one net. I couldn’t help noticing that he had two spare nets on the bank behind him – lesson learnt!

 

Full Result:

 

1.      Bob Gullick 114-12-0 peg 40

2.      Phil Harding 114-09-0 peg 10

3.      Mark Bartlett 111-07-0 peg 12

4.      Tom Mangnel 104-07-0 peg 6

5.      Rich Lovering 101-0-0 peg 4

6.      Rob Wotton 79-06-0 peg 18

 

Top Silvers:

 

1.      Craig Edmonds 29-09-0 peg 38

2.      Mike Nicholls 26-14-0 peg 19