Acorn Costcutter. Tuesday 19th February 2019

Fancied a match today and didn't want to travel too far, so this was the closest and on my second visit this year, I fancied beating my last match fifth place finish.

I was there ridiculously early, apparently its half term, the roads were nigh on deserted, shame the kids aren't on holiday more often....

22 fishing today, so a reasonable turnout for a February Tuesday, I somehow managed to draw a fancied peg, hmmm, this doesn't happen often, pressure on, as peg 9 has thrown up plenty of framing and winning weights.  Luckily, there were a fair few fishing which I didn't know, so none of of the usual banter to create more pressure.  I left the van where it was parked and walked my gear two and a half pegs, proper lazy fishing.

I had put together a Preston 9' Carp Feeder, with a small pellet feeder on it last night, but whilst I got it out of the van and took it to my peg, I couldn't bring myself to take the ties off and assemble it, so it went back in at the end, still strapped up.  Pole it would be then, peg 9 gives you a few options, there is a nice flat area in front of peg 8, the far bank is only 11m away straight across, but as it goes away to the right, you have a decent length  of bank to fish at, the only downside is that there is no farside shelf, it has eroded away all the way along.  I plumbed it very carefully, but just could not find that nice 15-18" of water, that the fish will feed in.  The best I could get was 24-30", so that would have to do.

I set up a dobbing rig to go all along the far bank, initially set 6" off bottom, another to fish banded pellet across (18 LWG on 0.14) and an identical rig with a spade end hook on for pellet or maggot (20 Kaizen on 0.14). The dobbing rig had a Kaizen 16 to 0.14 on, to start on bread.  A catch all rig for down the track, a 0.4 NG Gimp, with a 0.12 hooklength and a 16 Guru F1 maggot hook.  Finally a rig to fish down to the pallet of peg 8, this had a Kaizen 16 to 0.16, in the hope of a bit of action.....

Bait tray was caster, maggot, 4 and 6mm hard pellet, a few micros and some expanders, along with a couple of slices of bread.  I started dobbing bread across, had a couple of indications, but no proper bites, I varied the depth and it was the same, from touching bottom to 15" deep, I did expect to get something on this, but wasn't going to waste too much time on it, so after 25 fruitless minutes, put it back in the roost and picked up the cup.  I fed maggots across at approx. 11 0'clock and micro/4mm at 14m towards the open water, but still close to the farside.

I had a bite over the maggot line and a small roach dropped off, the victim of 12 solid elastic!!  Net drop in a perch the best part of a pound and three quarters was safely netted, then two carp about a pound each.  Then it started, a nightmare that I just couldn't stop - plenty of indications and 'bites' but it was all liners, they all came off, some just shedding the hook, some leaving me with the gift of a shiny scale.  I tried not feeding, drip feeding, dump feeding. this was happening on the maggot and the pellet line, I tried at various depths - bizarrely, coming off the bottom stopped the liners and foulers, but also stopped any indications. I tried another rig, lightly strung out and also bulked all the shot down on the original rig, to no avail.

I was pretty frustrated by now, over an hour gone, fish in the peg, peg 11 had a few over, 11 has a nice shelf, which is where he was catching. I had been feeding a 'throwaway line' caster by hand down the track, I picked up the catch all rig, single flouro maggot on and dropped it in, the float buried and a 3oz roach fell off, I swapped the rig onto one I had sat in the roost with No6 elastic (10 on the original set up) and went back in, looking to catch a few silvers while the carp settled, or  I worked out how to catch then across.

Float eased under in a much slower bite, expecting a silver I lifted into it and a 4lb carp was my reward.  I had a nice hour or so of double feeding about 20/30 casters and then dropping the rig in and within 5-15 minutes getting another carp. Feed too lightly and get liners, too much and the bites dried up. I put about 45lb in the net in 3 hours doing this, with one spell going back over, it was just the same, liners and foulers, except for one F1 one soft pellet.

The last hour was a nailbiter, I thought I had pulled ahead of peg 11, but my fish had disappeared, then he started catching across again, I tried this again, along with my LH edge and up to the pallet of 8 ( I felt this would be no good, as 7 was in and he fed to the pallet of 8 with a big cup, right from the start).

I upped that caster feed down the track and managed 3 more fish in the last 20 minutes, 2 in the last two put ins.  Thankfully my 64.13 was enough to win by just over 2lb...