09/03/13 - Acorns - Paddock

Weight - 17lb 2oz (7lb 6oz - silvers)
Catch - 4 Carp, 8 Skimmers, 3 Rudd, 3 Perch, 2 F1, 1 Tench, 1 Roach
Weather - Cloudy, slight northerly breeze
Match - Open - 6th out of 9 (2nd - silvers)

With the 1st round of the pole only series starting on Sunday I decided to book in at Acorns and was surprised to see only 4 names on the list. Eventually 9 turned up, but the low numbers was a result of a league match at Plantations.

Since there were only 9 of us it was decided to have a rover and I had 7th choice. I picked p33, although in hindsight I should have gone for p5. For company I had Mark Walsh on p34, but everyone else was spread around. As we were setting up a couple of carp rolled 2 pegs down so I was hopeful of a few fish, but the cold easterly weather system was still persisting, so no-one was too sure how it would go.

Well the answer was hard. With so few on the lake, it was easy enough for the fish to hide away. I decided not to bother with the groundbait today because it proved fairly in conclusion on Tuesday, but settled on feeding micros, by the bridge and 11m to my right down the track.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get a bite and it was an hour before I had my first fish, a small rudd on maggot. I had started feeding caster by the pallet on p32, which produced most of my silvers throughout the day, but I couldn’t catch more than 2 fish at a time.

The bridge swim didn’t produce anything and Mark only had 2 F1s early on from his side of the bridge so they just didn’t seem to be any fish there. In fact Mark caught mostly fishing to his left in the open water. Down the track to my right I only managed a few small skimmers on pellet, by continually drip feeding micros.

In the 2nd hour of the match I had decided to start ping 4s to the far bank in an attempt to pull in those carp that had been boshing further down the lake. I had periodically tried the far side and eventually the carp turned up with only 30mins left, catching 4 and losing a 5th. Had they turned up 30-45mins earlier I am certain I would have framed.

Come the weigh in I was left a little annoyed to find out that silvers payout was worth more than 2nd overall. Because there was less than 10 anglers the normal ready reckoner pinned up in the café didn’t apply, so I was unfortunately deprived of a silvers pick up by default.

1st 32-12 – Lee Waller – p6
2nd 27- 1 – Andy Gard – p38
3rd 24- 2 – Mark Walsh – p34
4th 21-14 – Siman Ryall – p9
5th 18-14 – Rob Smith – p21
6th 17- 2 – Ken Rayner – p33

Silvers
1st 23- 4 – Andy Gard – p38
2nd 7- 6 – Ken Rayner – p33