Tuesday 14/07/2020 - Acorn - Cost Cutter - Paddocks

Two weeks ago got in the shower dropped the soap bent down to pick it up (not recommended in some institutions) and put my back out - bloody agony. Subsequently cancelled my matches, contacted the Doctors and spoke to a receptionist who made an appointment for a Doctor to call me. Without video I did my best to explain the areas of pain. It ended with the Doctor asking me what I thought it was! I did and an appointment was made to actually see a Doctor which as I write is pending this Friday. Well every day the back has had some improvement and decided that sitting around wasn't the thing to do so thought I would try fishing the Acorn Cost Cutter.

Twenty nine fishing today.

I was hoping to avoid the Island pegs due to not being able to park behind the pegs. Mike C dipped me peg 18 next to where I was last match. Not far to struggle to the peg. For company I had Keith Ray on 19 and Paul Lasson on peg 16.

I struggled to get the box into the car but got help from Andy Gard and Keith Ray - thanks. I decided that twisting my body wasn't an option, which meant no unshipping onto a roller which I had left home. This left just fishing either straight out in front or to the right side where I could side saddle the box. This meant limiting myself to using top-sets. I set up two paste rigs - one for the margin and the other for in front, plus the Ronnie rig to fish either in front or to the RH side with maggot. I was hoping to catch Silvers throughout the match which to be honest wasn't going to happen on this peg plus at the moment the big Tench which are mostly holding up under the bridges are winning the Silvers, so only one Silver payout to go at - if that. However, there were a couple of things I wanted to try out so decided on a bit of a trials day. Nothing to say on these as neither worked on this peg, but still not fully discounted.

I started on the Ronnie rig with single maggot over loose feed, the writing was on the wall for Silvers as all I could catch was tiny 2 - 4 oz Carp. What was interesting was the behaviour of the Carp to the loose fed maggot. They obviously wanted them but not at the cost of spending a long time in the keep net! As I said I messed around trying things, it was obvious it was fishing hard. The upshot was it wasn't until two hours to go that I tried the paste down the margin fished over micro and loose fed hard 4's that I started to catch the odd Carp. The ones I was catching were some of the larger ones in the Lake so found it hard on the back lifting the landing net. By now I was miles behind both sides and thought about an early bath but after a little walk I went back and carried on. Come the last hour what was noticeable that our three pegs were fish sharing catch two or three then they would move. The Carp never really settled all day.

My Silvers and little Carp weighed 7 lb 4 oz and my Carp 95 lb 3 oz for a 6th overall weight of 102 lb 7 oz. If I had fished for the Silvers as normal down the track I could have perhaps added another 10 lb to this weight. However, the best part of the day was this morning finding my back no worse for wear, so trying again Thursday.

The match was won today's neighbour Keith Ray (pictured upper right) 144 lb 13 oz from peg 19. Keith caught most of his fish down his LH margin using either expander or maggot hook baits over micro and maggot. Keith was only 4 lb over his estimated overall weight. Well done matey did well from that peg particularly how close our pegs were.

The Silvers was won by Incognito (pictured) from yet another Bridge peg this time 34 with 29 lb 5 oz of Tench. Eddie caught on hard pellet over hard pellet feed.

Matey Glenn Bailey arrived with his new tackle box which looks like it's going to be lucky as he drew peg 11. However, We planned to have our first pint on the way home but because his new box had some dirt on it had to rush home and get the cotton wool buds out.

Result:

1. Keith Ray 144-13-0 peg 19
2. Paul Lasson 121-12-0 peg 16
3. Bob Smith 114-08-0 peg 13
4. Ray Cooper 110-03-0 peg 27
5. Paul Faiers 105-05-0 peg 33
6. Mike Nicholls 102-07-0 peg 18

Silvers:

1. Eddie Wynne 29-05-0 peg 34
2. Andy Gard 26-13-0 peg 21

Weigh Sheets: