On Saturday we headed to Acorn for our first visit of the year, there had been some good silvers weights in the week but waking up to a hard frost wouldn’t do us any favours. 26 anglers booked in for today and I was hoping for a nice silvers peg, Des held the bucket aloft and I pulled out 15 which wasn’t where I wanted to be! Parker ‘The Pole’ got 19 for the fourth time in about seven matches while Nick pulled a flier in the shape of peg 9 which is great for silvers and carp.
PTP and me were over on the back straight which is known as ‘No Man’s Land’, Chris Fox, who organises lots of matches at Acorn, drew 18 and didn’t even bother going to his peg which didn’t bode well for us!
I set up a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot and a Drennan 0.4 gram Pencil for a line at 10 metres straight out, 11.5 metres to the right down the track and top two plus two. The side tray contained maggots, disco pinkies plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 and Dark groundbait.
Unusually for Acorn it was flat calm and combined with the overnight frost and some heavy rain in the morning, most were predicting lower than normal weights today. At the all in I fed all three lines with little nuggets of groundbait and a few pinkies before starting at 10 metres with double disco pinkie on the hook.
I actually had a indication quite quickly but it may have been a liner as Brian Slipper on my left was fishing tight across to the boards and lost a foulhooked carp within a few minutes. As expected it was a fairly slow start, after about 15 mins I had a couple of little dinks on the float and then a lovely slow bite resulted in a pleasing amount of elastic on show before I landed a nice 1.5lb tench.
Not long after I had one of a pound and over the next hour or so I added a couple of skimmers but it was hard going. Brian was getting the odd carp but having problems with foulhookers as was Gareth down on peg 10, while Paul Faiers on 11 and Alex on my right hadn’t caught yet. With around two hours on the clock I had my first look on the 11.5 metre line and the float buried straight away, it felt like a skimmer but came off shipping back. Next chuck I hooked another but it turned into a small carassio and then fell off at the net!
I was getting a few bites on this line but a goldfish type thing, carassio and a carp that pulled the elastic out didn’t help my cause much. Resting the longer lines would result in a quick bite or two although I did have a 10oz perch when I lifted the rig up and it was on and I hadn’t had an indication, I also had a lumpy carp on for ages before it came off at the net.
Bunghole Bob on 12 was catching a few including a couple of instant wins and apparently Nick was landing some nice silvers and hooking lots of carp but I couldn’t see him. I’d been feeding the short line from the start and was hoping for good things but when I dropped in on it, I never had a bite there. I did have one more skimmer and lost another carp from the longer lines and that was it for the rest of the match.
It had been a tricky match for many, Brian had caught a few but lost 13 foulhookers, Alex only had one fish and Paul F finished up with a perch and a roach, both hooked up the bum! When the scales got round to our side, Glenn Calvert was leading with 74lb 6oz from peg 40 and Graham Smith was top silvers so far with 9lb 8oz from peg 36 (and he had 49lb 10oz of carp).
Pegs 23 didn’t weigh, Sebastian on 21 weighed 26lb 13oz, PTP had 8lb 4oz of silvers and then Brian weighed 46lb, I chucked my three carpy things back and my six silvers went a level 5lb, Alex threw back, Bob had 40lb 13oz, Paul didn’t weigh and Gareth had 49lb 7oz but lost a similar number to Brian.
Nick’s carp went 30lb 11oz and then he had a nice net of tench and skimmers for 17lb 9oz to win the silvers. The last two to weigh were Jerry S who had 37lb 2oz and Mike H on 6 weighed 48lb 13oz.
Nick won the silvers with 17lb 9oz
1 – Glenn Calvert – 74lb 6oz
2 – Martin Rayet – 62lb 11oz
3 – Graham Smith – 59lb 2oz
4. – Des Shipp – 58lb 5oz
Sections
A – Gareth Boycott – 49lb 7oz
B – Brian Slipper – 46lb
C – Simon Stacey – 45lb 10oz
Silvers
Nick Payne – 17lb 9oz
So a really disappointing day for me as my stuttering start to the year continues, there were lots of close weights with just a couple of carp separating them. Foulhooked carp were a problem for many as this continued unsettled weather means the fish don’t know whether they’re coming or going!
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
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Next up – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
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