Wintery Conditions at Acorn Paddock 2/5/10

I was looking forward to this return visit, its a venue thats makes for an easy day out, easy walks (or drive!!), no snags and plenty of room to unship. The usual pre draw banter took place, although it was still lacking the usual talk of which pegs were flyers or not, as venue knowledge has yet to become apparent.

The drawbag gave me peg 17, Steve Hutchinson had 70lb off this peg last time, but that was without a freezing cold wind. I set up a 2 rigs to fish maggot or banded pellet tight across, that was a MW slim power on 01.5 to a 0.13 hooklength and a 18PR36 for the pellet and the same but a 18 6313 hook for maggot. A 0.4g slim power to fish the near line for perch was on 0.13 to a 0.11 hooklength and again a 18 6313. A MW power diamond with on 0.15 to 0.13 and a B911 18 was the set up for down the track and with wild optimisim a Big H paste float on 0.15.

I started on the near line and took a couple of perch on caster, then a couple of the pasty carp, this line went quiet, so a switch to the line down the track which had been fed with micros and caster, again a couple of fish, before the line switchd off. Over to the island and two fish on pellet, then nothing. A switch back to the near line where I'd introduced some chopped worm, saw a couple more pasties in the net. I could see Martin Rich on 16, he was catching down the track, in the rough water close to the bridge, but because the bridge sits in the water, the ripple didn't get through to me, I had flat calm for a lot of the day, even with the wind.

By alternating between worm, caster and maggot, I kept the odd fish coming from the near line (topkit to hand), but it was slow going. In the last hour I managed to get a run of fish from the island, but the biggest fish I could muster on the day, was approx 1lb.

As the scales came round at the end, I was confident of beating those to my left, who had struggled for bites, even more than I had, but knew Martin Rich had done me. All that didn't matter as Sean Kitteridge had put over a ton on the scales and my 37lb 12oz wasn't enough for a frame or any section money.

The cold wind had obviously affected the fishing, I was bloody freezing at the end, more like February than May, lets hope its warmer next time.

1) Sean Kitteridge 135.13 peg 9
2) Rod Wootten 64.4 peg 11
3) Gary Wall 60.00 peg 30
4) Martin Rich 51.8 peg 16
5) Tim Ford 49.14 peg 5
6) Paul Faiers 49.6 peg 4

Silvers

1) Paul Faiers 25.14