Wednesday 30 May 2018

Acorn Open, Monday 28th May 2018

I needed to be home at a reasonable time, so this was the closest match, with a reasonable finish time and after Thursday nights result, I booked in.

15 fishing so plenty of room to spread the pegs out, into the drawbag and ping pong ball 6 was my reward..... although the peg hasn't got much recent form. I was disappointed to see peg 40 in as well, everyone else on the lake had 1,2 or 3 peg gaps, whereas myself and the guy on 40 would be feeding an area only separated by the width of the bridge.  As peg 5 wasn't in. I would have put 7, not 6 in.

I have drawn this peg before and whilst the RH margin looks inviting, it is shallow and silty, I have never managed to catch from it, so decided not to waste my time with it.  The LH margin is short, due to a small rush bed that divides peg 6 from 7 and again, I haven't had much success from here in the past, but set up a rig to fish it.

The main catching areas would be, I suspected, across at 14m right by the bridge and again at 14m to a small area between the tall grasses on the island, so rigs to fish up on the shelf and another for the deeper shelf, which extends out several feet in front of the bridge.  I also set a rig to fish pellet short, hoping that would come good at some stage,  I had some paste, so set up a rig to fish that over the short line as a target bait.  Apart from that the bait tray was pretty simple, 4, 6 & 8mm pellets and worms, with some GB to go down the edge.

As there was so much time to set up, I did set up a 9' feeder rod, with a method feeder attached, as I could cast down to the boards at the other end of the island and was hopeful that there would be a few from this line.

Given the low weights from the venue recently, I started off fairly negatively, just pinging half a dozen 4mm pellets across, the guy on peg 40 was feeding a bit more positively with a big pot, so I was fairly sure that wouldn't do me any favours. It was a tough first hour with just 3 fish in the net and not many indications.  I had tried to get the line by the bridge to work for an hour, before I fed the other 14m line, this was tricky, as the bank has collapsed in here a bit and made a very shallow shelf, which the fish come in on, but seem very spooky and won't settle.  I was also struggling to present properly, as the wind was just enough to prevent me holding the pole still, typically the wind was L to R through my peg, meaning nearly everyone else either had it behind or straight on, so not affecting presentation.

After about 90 minutes and very little happening, Martin McMahon was having a walk and reporting that Joe was admitting to 40lb on peg 12, I picked up the method rod and dropped it down to the end of the island, with GB on the feeder and a 6mm pellet wafter on the hook, it didn't take long for the tip to go round and then another shortly after, but it was typical of the day, that I struggled to catch two fish off the same line, before having to swap, the method did produce 2 more fish during the day, but each time it was after resting it and then getting one on the first cast after the rest.  The LH margin produced one carp and a perch, it was as in my previous times drawing this peg, pretty much a non starter.  The short line didn't produce anything, not even a liner on pellet or paste.

In the last hour I did start to get a few on 6mm pellet getting it as tight to the bridge as I could, in the slightly deeper water (second shelf), but it was far from hectic.  I was trying out a new pattern of float I'd made, with the tungsten wire and was pleased with the way it performed.

In the end, I weighed a hard won 62.10.08 (yep, the electronic scales registered half ounces!!) which was 5th on the day, the weigh sheet below had 3 more to weigh which didn't have 60lb, so I know I ended up 5th, I can't be too disappointed with that as myself and peg 40 suffered with us both fishing to the end of the bridge.






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