Pole Only Series, Round Five. Acorn. Sunday 25th May 2014

Round  five of what has been a dismal series for me, one match I decided to fish for silvers and won, apart from that my decision to fish for carp and the overall has been a poor one,  as I feel I would have been better targeting the silvers.

Peg ten was the last in the tub today and as seems to be the norm at Acorn, the wind was ripping through the peg R – L bringing with it a Huntspill-esque chop on the surface.  I had already decided on my approach and the wind didn’t mean making any changes.  Five pints of maggot were in my bait tub, with the intention of attracting a few fish of any species to feed and then that would hopefully draw in the carp.

Four rigs would suffice, a NG Ghandi to fish across tight to the far bank, a MW FI slim to fish at 5m, with a strung bulk, a 0.4 NG Gimp to fish across at the bottom of the far shelf and finally a small diamond shaped float to fish down the edge to the pallet of the empty peg 11.

Starting tight across, I expect to get a bite or fish quite quickly, even though I hadn’t seen any indication of fish over there, this line proved to be a waste of time, the float remained buoyant and untroubled by fish.

I had fed some groundbait and maggot at the bottom of the far shelf and this did produce one ghostie about 3lb, but he appeared to be a loner, as it was the only bite.  This area of the peg was towing hard against the wind and this has coincided with the fish being uncooperative on previous occasions. 

So earlier than I had planned, the 5m line was brought into play, this gave up a run of skimmers and four F1’s, but it was like winter fishing, size 20, 0.10 hooklength.  This wasn’t exactly fast and furious, but I held out the hope that the feeding fish would encourage the carp to come in and push them out.  With half the match gone I fed some dampened pellet and maggot down the edge by 11, leaving half an hour, I refed dropped in and had a carp straight away on 4 maggots.  Then I had a couple of missed bites before finding the culprit was a small roach, so fed again  and that seemed to kill it completely.

Back on the two open water lines and the odd skimmer fell to them,  but still no carp, a look back down the edge with a JPZ pellet on brought an immediate response and carp No3, but that was to be the last fish and bite from the edge.  With 40 minutes to go, the carp turned up on the 5m line and I had a little run of them, but it was too little too late.  I had felt that they weren’t in the peg, rather than there and not feeding as I had no liners or foulers, so maybe the approach wasn’t disastrously wrong, just the wrong peg on the wrong day.
My silvers went 15.06 for  joint second in section and match and my carp went 30.08 of which 24lb was in the last 40 minutes.

No fishing until next Sunday as I am working all week, so it’s back to Acorn for the final round, I will just wait until I draw to decide if I’ll have a day on the silvers or go for it – although I am in C section, which produced some dire weights this week, could do with the wind swinging round and pushing down that end of the lake.

Message from Bridge Troll Bob, he's got the boxing on next Saturday night, he's got young Tom coming round for the inter bout entertainment and has got plenty of baby oil in, all welcome.......

1. Kevin Lloyd 90-12-0 peg 7
2. Pete Bartlett 82-12-0 peg 12
3. Bela Bakos 67-12-0 peg 40
4. Lewis Jones 62-08-0 peg 22
5. R. Fogg 62-08-0 peg 6
6. Andy France 54-0-0 peg 1 

Silvers

1: Paul Faiers 24.02 peg 5
=2: Chris Fox and Eddie Wynne 15.06 pegs 10 and 9