Acorn Open, Monday 9th April

I fished Friday, but just couldn't be arsed to write about it, Trinity Waters, I drew peg 9 which I wasn't unhappy with, but my match was a waste of a day, I foul hooked 1 small tench and 1 small carp, the only thing I hooked fair and square in the mouth was a 12oz eel.

Today was my first visit to Acorn  Paddock Lake since May 2010 - it was a toss up between this or watching City v Coventry, I booked into this before I saw the wet weather forecast..... Still, the breakfast has improved since the early days and at £5.50 for the large one, it wasn't too bad at all.

Peg 7 was to be my home for 6 hours, having been advised by those with local knowledge that I'd need to carch from the shelf in front of peg 8 (handily vacant) if I was to stand a chance of beating peg 5 or 6. So a 4x12 Carpa Chimp was set up to fish this very flat plateau that extends a few feet from the margin of peg 8. I also set up a rig to fish meat tight across and another Chimp (4x14) to fish at the bottom of the far shelf for skimmers.

My silvers quest started OK, with a tench and a couple of skimmers, then I hooked a carp which promptly saw the skimmers do a disappearing act. By this time I was becoming a spectator, watching Glen Bailey on peg 5 catching well and Rich Heatly catching - a smaller stamp of carp - from his far shelf next to the bridge. I persevered with the silvers quest, but after two hours gave up, as the odd carp that I hooked and landed, scared the skimmers off for periods of up to an hour. It was the dilema of if I fed it attracted carp, but not in sufficient numbers to catch consistently or if I laid of the feed I could get the skimmers back, but how do you keep them coming without feeding?

I hooked a big carp that came off and as it did the float exploded, so up the bank with that top kit and a try with banded pellet, that produced my one and only fish from the plateau of peg 8 and I had one more over against the far bank, but I wasn't getting liners or foulers, they seemed content to stay in peg 5 and by the bridges.

I topped up the skimmer line with 2 balls of groundbait and had a little run of fish, but again a carp moved in and that was the end of the skimmer action, as this one ploughed through the swim, before taking me out into open water in front of 8 and snapping the hooklength.

I ended the day with 29lb odd of carp and 11lb 12 of silvers, which I believe was one out of the silvers money, I don't think there were enough carp in the peg to compete with the carp weights (I only had 6 or 7 for the 29lb), so they were big (for the venue) carp pushing out the silvers. In contrast Silvers winner Steve Mayo didn't weigh a single carp.

Not fishing until next Sunday now and I reckon it will take that long to dry my kit out.

1.      Glenn Bailey 120-10-0 peg 5

2.      Des Shipp 85-12-0 peg 21

3.      Mike Nicholls 84-06-0 peg 38

4.      Rich Healey 80-14-0 peg 6

5.      Kev Perry 79-04-0 peg 40

6.      Lance Tucker 69-09-0 peg 39

 Silvers:

1.      Steve Mayo 42-04-0 peg 15

2.      Mark Bartlett 35-04-0 peg 1

3.      Paul Faiers 17-08-0 peg 30