Acorn Fishery – Ace of Acorn Silvers Qualifier – 23rd October 2025

The last few years, there have been lots of great silvers competitions including the Angling Trust, Fish South and now, new for this year, the Fishing Masters. Even better, one of my favourite venues, Acorn, is holding several qualifiers and I managed to get some tickets. The good news didn’t end there either, Zoe said they would be running an Ace of Acorn Silvers competition with a series of qualifiers and a final next March.

I couldn’t fish the first qualifier but booked a day off work the following Thursday, once again the weather was going to let us have it with the forecast for strong winds and heavy rain! Draw time arrived and I pulled out 23 on the far side between the two bridges, a good area for silvers and I was also the end peg which couldn’t hurt! I got rigs out to fish across, two lines at 10 metres and another at top four.

While we were setting up, it was flat calm so hopefully the predicted windy conditions would hold off until a bit later. We got underway and I fed the three shorter lines before starting across with single maggot on the hook. It took ten minutes to get a bite and my first fish was a decent ide, next chuck I had 1.5lb skimmer and I began catching really well. It slowed a bit in hour two but I was still getting a few indications and had another decent skimmer, more ide and a couple of roach.

With 2.5 hours gone, I’ve had a look on the 10 metre lines and landed my third skimmer along with a few more ide but also started hooking carp on a regular basis. The wind was now a nightmare and at one stage I hooked what felt like a decent skimmer but as I shipped back, a gust caught the pole and it came off. I could only really see the anglers to my right, Dave M on 21 was catching a few but suffering a few carp issues and Andy G looked to be struggling.

I’d been feeding maggots on the short line and going into the last hour I tried it for the first time, I missed a couple of bites before catching a lovely big ide that was pushing a pound and a half. Double disco pinkie resulted in a 1lb+ perch and another of a similar size followed a few minutes later. My last fish was another decent ide I landed on the final whistle, I ended up with 34 fish which I thought would go a little more than the 16lb I had on Saturday.

I packed up and as the scales got round our side I went to see what the scores on the doors were, Paul Faiers was leading with 23lb 4oz from peg 4 followed by Shaun F on 2 with 18lb 11oz. John Mills weighed 10lb 11oz on peg 12, Dave B had 6lb, Andy G weighed 5lb 14oz and then Dave M did well with 13lb 13oz. I pulled my net out and it was agonizingly close but the digital display settled just short on 23lb 2oz.

Back at the results and Jerry S on peg 40 was the next best weight in my zone with 20lb 8oz so I actually finished second on the day picking up £75 and was well chuffed to qualify for the final.

1 – Paul Faiers (Sensas 88) – 23lb 4oz (Q)
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 23lb 2oz (Q)
3 – Jerry Salisbury (Acorn) – 20lb 8oz

Sections
A – Shaun Fillingham (Acorn) – 18lb 11oz
B – Dave Manning (Acorn) – 13lb 13oz
C – Lee Masey (Acorn) – 7lb 7oz

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

Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here