Saturday 30 May 2020

Acorn Open, Saturday 30th May 2020

I hope everyone is OK and coping with the current situation, it's nice to be back fishing, especially matches, as pleasure fishing just doesn't do it for me.  Last weekend I ventured down to Acorn with Paul Faiers and had a few hours, not difficult fishing, although it was windy, mainly fished paste and pellet short, we both ended up with around 200lb on our clickers

Last Monday I ventured down to Viaduct, it was like a winter league or fisho, the car park was rammed and I went and checked if there were actually any pegs left, it was good to be back there and see the Long family, there were a couple of pegs, so I decided to find one. I had a walk round and found 82 empty, so sat there, some of the pegs look empty as you walk round, but then you find a pair of rods on them.  For some reason the carpers seem to sit off the pallets, away from their rods - odd behaviour if you ask me....

Anyway, I had a nice day, the sun shone, I caught a few carp on the waggler, some decent skimmers and a 4lb bream on the pole and a 20lber down the edge, I also sat watching and listening with some amazement at the size of the leads and PVA bags some of the 'carpers' were casting in, like Howitzers going through the air and boshing into the lake, with every carp for 3 pegs around bow waving off in all directions.  The leads must be burying themselves in the silt and taking the bait with it.  I didn't see any of the Howitzer brigade catch anything at all and they gradually packed up and left by 3pm.

Anyway, enough of that, onto today's match, this should have been one of the summer league dates, but with three matches already fallen to the lockdown, the rest of the dates are being run as opens. Peg fee paid to the fishery on the day, pools paid online earlier in the week, so it was rock up and have a peg drawn for you, can't say I was over the moon with peg 26 when it was called - I still have  dodgy drawing arm even when I'm 10m from the drawbag........

Still it was the first match back and the pegs at this end of the lake do occasionally come good, but they are far from consistent, that said, I was going to give it a good shot.  Topkits for paste down the edge, pellet shallow, pellet on the deck and pellets across - last week paste had been the best bait.

On the all-in I fed some 4mm pellets short and then went across to the bare bank opposite and expected to catch, I did have a couple of small fish, but it was slow going.  The depth rig down the track was barren, not even a liner.  I saw a couple of fish over the pellets I'd been flicking in the margin and dropped in there with the paste rig, second put in I had a 9lber and I thought I'd cracked it, but as fish do, they had other ideas and I had no more bites on paste.

I did manage to get a brief run of fish across, on 6mm pellet, but they eventually moved off, the fish were coming to the noise of bait, but weren't in a feeding frenzy, there were long spells of inactivity, but it was beautiful day and at least we were fishing a match

I switched the margin line to GB and dead maggots, fishing double worm over it, this brought a run of fish, not frantic by any means.  The fish  were giving themselves away by tail waving, if I saw one tail, I didn't get a bite, see two tails maybe a bite and three tails definitely a bite, they needed that bit of competition to grab the worms.  I saw a big back out of the water 12-14lb I estimated, it tipped down right on top of the worms and the float buried, trouble is I was attached to 4lber that must have nipped in a grabbed the worms first.

I clicked 97lb, but I do find it tricky at Acorn to get as accurate as I tend to be a Viaduct, I think its the variation in size of fish and the variation in shape, I was happy to put 109.06 on the scales for a section win, but do feel that I could have done better, fishing paste cost me, last weeks experience should have stayed in the past....

Well done Kev on the win and Faiersy - a section win by triple default.... I'd feel too guilty to take it 😀

Viaduct tomorrow, another nice day in the offing.

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