On Wednesday it was back up the M5 to Acorn for my first attempt at another new silvers competition, the Fishing Masters. With a similar format to other big money silvers qualifiers, you basically have to win the match for a spot in the final which is no mean feat with loads of top anglers fishing. It was great to see Exeter Mike again and he very generously gave me £20 for the Nugget-O-Meter – thank you mate! His son Richard was also fishing today and along with lots of Acorn regulars there was a contingent from Summerhayes with Glynn and McKenzie plus Dan Taggert who was fishing his first qualifier and had brought his own bank runner in the shape of Big Bad Bob.
Draw time arrived and I pulled out 29 which was one I really fancied although the island pegs have been dominant in recent weeks with Callum Dicks probably the pre-match favourite to qualify on peg 4. For company I had Tony P on 31 and Dan T was to my right so we had the obligatory pound side bet.
On the whistle I fed little nuggets of groundbait and pinkies at top four and a couple of lines at 10 metres before starting across to the island in search of the ide. First put in the float settled and then slid away but loads of elastic came out and a carp wasn’t the intended species. Next chuck I had a decent ide and thought I was in for a good start but two of my next three fish were carp! I tried shallowing up and going tighter to the boards which resulted in two ide and a lost carp but with nearly an hour on the clock, I was going nowhere fast.
The left hand 10 metre swim resulted in three more ide in quick succession but it was short lived, Dan was catching quite well and my pound was already looking in grave danger! I fed a new line at 11.5 metres to the right and had a decent skimmer first chuck but that was it. Swapping round my lines I had two ide out the blue at 10 metres but never had a bite from the short swim yet again. Tony had a great finish catching several ide whereas I never added anything else to my rather sparse catch.
As the scales got round to the far side I went to watch the weigh in, looking at the board, Callum was leading with a fantastic 29lb 1oz but it had fished really hard for most and Richard H was the next best weight with 10lb 6oz. Dave Willmott on 21 then went into second place with an excellent 26lb 5oz, Martin R weighed 8lb 11oz and Paul F on 25 only had 4lb 12oz which shows how tricky it had been for a lot of people.
Dan T had fished a really tidy match on his first visit to weigh 14lb 6oz which put him in third spot so far, my ten fish went 6lb 3oz and Tony had 11lb 2oz to make sure I’d been battered both sides like a chip shop sausage! Vince Brown on 34 went into third place with 21lb 4oz, Stu White had 11lb 7oz and Ant P on 40 won that section with 11lb 10oz. Photos courtesy of Acorn*
Callum qualified with a cracking net of silvers weighing 29lb 1oz*
Dave Willmott is never far away and had an excellent 26lb 5oz for second place*
1 – Callum Dicks (Matrix) – 29lb 1oz (Q)
2 – Dave Willmott (Acorn) – 26lb 5oz
3 – Vince Brown (Acorn) – 21lb 4oz
Sections
A – Richard Hosgood (Acorn) – 10lb 6oz
B – John Fuidge (Acorn) – 6lb 14oz
C – Dan Taggart (Bridgwater) – 14lb 6oz
D – Ant P (Acorn) – 11lb 10oz
Exeter Mike’s very generous £20 donation saw the Nugget-O-Meter rocket up to £73.
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
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Acorn
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
#sponsoredpost #affiliatelinks
