Acorn Fishery – Short Pole Match – 4th May 2026

For day three, it was back up to Acorn again, this time for a short pole match which are always popular and there were 31 fishing today. Before the draw I was chatting to Steve Whatley (441 Floats) who said he had a batch of his floats with him, I bought some in 0.1 and 0.2 grams which look ideal for some of the shallower venues I fish and I’ll report back when I’ve tried them.

When it was time for fate to decide where my home for the day would be, I pulled out number 10 which wasn’t on my wishlist as it’s a great carp peg and would be wasted on me! With the amount of anglers fishing, peg 8 was put in and when Martin Rayet said he fancied it, I’ll give you one guess which peg he drew?

It was a top kit plus three limit today and on the whistle I fed a line at that length and another at four sections. I didn’t get off to the best of starts foulhooking several carp on the trot while Tony Rixon over on the island (peg 4) was soon into his stride landing a succession of ide. After somewhat stumbling out of the blocks, I eventually began getting a few silvers but with Tony bagging and Gareth Boycott on peg 2 also regularly netting fish, it already felt like the best I could aim for was a nice days fishing.

I caught in spells including several nice tench to 2lb along with some decent skimmers and was hoping for a good last hour but it hasn’t happened as carp ‘o’ clock arrived with a vengeance. At the all out, my tally was 49 silvers plus 6 carp which was a nice days fishing but I was sure I’d be a long way behind Tony who had caught all day.

As the scales reached our side, Tony was winning the silvers with 43lb 13oz but only just as Gareth had weighed 43lb 4oz and Martin made no mistakes to lead overall with an excellent 160lb 7oz. Paul Faiers on my right had a rare day away from the island but still put an impressive 98lb 1oz on the scales and then my silvers went 31lb 13oz.

1 – Martin Rayet (Acorn) – 160lb 7oz
2 – Mike Watkins (Acorn) – 123lb 5oz
3 – Mark Broomsgrove (Sensas 88) – 107lb 4oz
4 – Paul Faiers (Sensas 88) – 98lb 1oz

Sections
A – Glenn Calvert (Sensas 88) – 84lb 2oz
B – Bob Gullick (Acorn) – 61lb 1oz
C – Ian Driscoll (Acorn) – 92lb 14oz
D – Steve Whatley (Acorn) – 72lb 5oz

Silvers
1 – Tony Rixon (Acorn) – 43lb 13oz
2 – Gareth Boycott (Acorn) – 43lb 4oz

Brilliant fishing and there were several really close silvers weights with Darrel Barnes on peg 25 recording 42lb 11oz and Stu White weighing 39lb 9oz on 24.

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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