On Thursday it was off to Acorn for my last Fish South silvers qualifier of this campaign, 24 anglers fishing today and in recent matches, the pegs to draw have been 1, 2 and 4 on the island. I went into the bucket with just a few balls left and couldn’t believe it when I pulled out 2! For company I had Ads Palmer on 4 with Luke Fothergill to my right. I had a chat with Ant P who’d done well off my peg earlier in the week and he said he’d caught ide across and some big tench, perch and skimmers on a short line.
So the plan for today was start off at 13 metres catching ide then move across to the boards at 14.5 metres and swap between the two for a couple of hours until they shut up shop. Next would be 10 metres down the middle before ending up short to finish with 30lb+ and winning the match to qualify for the big money final, sounds simple doesn’t it!
On the whistle I fed all my lines before starting at 13 metres and after a couple of minutes, a positive bite resulted in a nice ide and I was on my way…. or was I? Next chuck I lost a carp and then couldn’t get a bite, this wasn’t in the script! Meanwhile Ads was bagging on ide fishing around a metre off the far bank, Luke was catching short and basically my head came off!
Not wanting to fall too far behind, I’ve gone to 14.5 metres a lot earlier than I would have liked and my carefully considered ploy of toss potting pinkies on one line and pinging maggots on the other went out the window as I started spraying bait everywhere! I was getting odd ide but falling further and further behind my neighbours so after two hours I had a look short where I’d been feeding casters and had a little run of fish but it didn’t last.
In full headless chicken mode, I’d totally neglected the 10 metre line and never even tried it all day and went back across where I actually caught really well for the final sixty minutes. I finished up with 30 ide, 3 small roach and a pound perch for around 16lb which I was sure would be no good today.
Des arrived with the scales and Luke weighed 16lb 10oz, I just pipped him with 16lb 14oz before Ads weighed a fantastic 31lb 11oz and after coming so close at the Viaduct in the last one, I thought he’d qualify with that today. When Ben T on peg 5 weighed 13lb 5oz and Des said him and Andy A had struggled on 6 and 7, I thought there might be a chance of a (thoroughly undeserved) default section win but of course he weighed 19lb which about summed up my day. Photo credit – Acorn Fishery*
Ads fished a brilliant match to qualify with 31lb 11oz*
Back at the results and Stu White had finished second on peg 34 with 26lb 15oz and Vince Brown did well on 14 to finish third with 21lb 11oz and then there were a string a very close weights.
1 – Ads Palmer (Sensas) – 31lb 11oz (Q)
2 – Stu White (Acorn) – 26lb 15oz
3 – Vince Brown (Acorn) – 21lb 11oz
Sections
A – Des Shipp (Preston Innovations) – 19lb
B – Bob Gullick (Acorn) – 19lb
C – John Fuidge (Acorn) – 17lb 6oz
D – Matt Tomes (Acorn) – 20lb 6oz
I always try to be honest on the blog and today was probably one of the worst matches I’ve ever fished and I’d blown a brilliant peg, I wasn’t even close today and it drove home to me the gulf between the top silvers anglers and the likes of me! It was definitely a framing peg and a better angler might have even pushed Ads, I must admit to driving home feeling properly deflated. I will still have another go next season but it just goes to show how good some of these boys are, to qualify once is a real achievement and most of them have qualified for multiple finals, just different gravy!
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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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
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