10/03/13 - Acorns - Top Lake

Weight - 5lb
Catch - 12 Skimmers
Weather - Cloudy, bitterly cold north easterly wind
Match - Pole Only Series - rd 1 - 27th out of 32 (8th out of 8 - section)

I was looking forward to this series, with all matches on Acorns, rather than being split with Plantations. Originally there was suppose to be 40 anglers, but only 32 stumped up the cash, which at least means the pegging wont be as tight as it could be. What I wasn’t looking to was sitting in the bitterly cold north easterly wind and everyone wanted to draw out of the wind, which isn’t easy at Acorns.

I was more than happy to pull peg 2 on the top lake, because it was mostly out of the worst of the wind, although it was still blowing into my face. The lake is also nicknamed the dog bone lake, becuase it is wider at both ends and narrower in middle. My peg was opposite Nick Harvey on peg 1 who was looking very pleased with himself, with the wind off his back and flat water in front. We both thought we would do well, because neither of us fancied being drawn at the top end where it was really exposed to the elements.

On the all in a small amount of micros & maggot was deposited at 6m and against the end bank, which had the same depth as the rest of the peg. After 90mins I caught my first fish, a skimmer from the end bank.

Tim Ford on p7 called to see how I getting on. At the time I still only had 1 skimmer, whilst Nick had 1 small carp. Tim said that most had caught a few fish, so I was falling behind, although at the time I wasn’t overly concerned about the lack of activity, because I was sure I would catch, but I was in danger of having to play catch up.

Since my carefully fed short swim wasn’t working, a ball of groundbait was deposited at 10m, whilst I kept drip feeding micros and maggot into the end bank, expecting the swim to come to life later on. Having left the groundbait for 10mins, I caught a skimmer straight away, before losing 3 mainly due to the wind which was increasing in strength. I had been using a 0.5g chump, but felt I needed a heavier float so set up a .75g polar ice which sat better in the worsening conditions, but I couldn’t get another bite.

I had fed a ball of groundbait to my right, but never had a bite, so I fed another ball to my left and I had my best spell of the match with 7 skimmers in the last 30nins.

I think today I can genuinely say I had drawn the wrong of the section, with the bottom 3 in section all coming from my end of the lake. In hindsight I should have fed groundbait earlier, I may have caught more then Paul on p3 who had 7-11, but next best weight was 12lb so miles away really. At least I know which result I will be dropping.

1st 68- 2 – Paul Bartlett – p9
2nd 62- 9 – Mike Owens – p34
3rd 52-10 – Lewis Jones – p7
4th 44- 8 – Chris Fox – p33
5th 44- 4 – Matt Tomes – p38
6th 36-12 – Mike Nicholls – p12

Silvers
1st 14- 6 – Nigel Vigus – top lake 8
2nd 12- 0 – Tim Ford – top lake 7
3rd 9- 0 – Lance Tucker – top lake 4
4th 8- 8 – Nigel Bartlett – top lake 6