Shiplate Open, Sunday 3rd January 2020

 17 of us on the main lake today, drawn in order of booking on, with me coming out of the hat last or last but one, once all the fancied pegs had gone, peg 9 for me, not a peg I have seen produce much in my previous visits, apparently yesterday it had 1" thick ice on it and today had a lovely NW wind blowing straight into it - I wasn't confident.....

I set up a straight lead and a cage feeder, left the waggler rod in the bag as getting ant feed out would be nigh on impossible with the head on wind.  I did set a rig for down the LG and RH edges (same depth) but I never got used, I set up 2 rigs for 14m, a .4 and a .5 bodied float with a wire stem, one with a 20 and 0.10 fluorocarbon, the other with 0.12FC and a 18, in case it got good.....

I had a chuck round with the lead, no signs, I had the feeling there weren't going to many, if any carp in the coldest peg on the lake, so concentrated on silvers, feeding GB with squatt and pinkies in on one line, micros and maggots on the other, but very negatively.

It was a slow and steady match, I was catching small roach over the squatt and pinkie, but at least it was bites in the cold wind (and rain!) at 12 0'clock I had two skimmers in two put in's, then back to roach, bit odd.  I had one more decent skimmer about 12.30 and that was it, back to the tiny roach again.  The micro line was pretty much dead until the last 40 minutes when I had a small hybrid and then a tench, that gave me 9.06, I was sure walking back past peg 8 weighing in that I heard 11lb something and Dom weighed 15lb odd, so into the van and off home, then it transpires I was second in the silvers, so a second pick up of the weekend, but well away from the carp today.....

1st p13a John Page 115lb 02oz

2nd p4 Shawn Kittridge 109lb 06oz

3rd p11 Paul Lasson 63lb 14oz

1st silvers- p6 Dom Sullivan 15lb 14oz

2nd silvers- p9 Chris Fox 9lb 06oz

Acorn Open, Saturday 2nd January 2021

Decided to run an open on Acorn, as we are still able to match fish - for how long, who knows.

17 fishing, so I tried to spread it out an give the pegs that can be hard in winter some room, but no matter how you peg a match in winter, someone will be sat on a few fish and others will struggle.  I wouldn't usually pay silvers on this venue, but given it was frozen and we'd be ice breaking, I added two silvers payouts, just to give something else to fish for.

I did the draw for everyone, but got Kev Perry to draw mine out, I wasn't upset when he revealed ping pong ball 5 a peg I had never drawn before (at least, I can never remember drawing it).

I broke out a channel across to the far bank and there was some colour in the water on the nearside edge, so I broke out a channel to my left.  Simplicity itself for rigs, a rig for the channel down the left, a dobbing rig for bread across, set 5" off the bottom to start with, a rig for maggot across on the deck and a rig for down the channel at 2+2.

Started off on the bread rig and had a carp and an F1 in the first 15 minutes, another after about 25 minutes.  I did have quick look down the LH channel but since the ice breaking the colour had rapidly dropped out and despite looking down there at intervals during the match, I never had a bite there.

I had a couple more across and the ice started to move to the left, taking my nice clear channel with it, I tried to bring a fish round and through my channel but it had moved to far and the elastic was catching in the ice and the fish came off - frustrating.  Time to recut the channel, this could be done with the pole and pole cup, as the ice was thinning.  That seemed to quieten things down, so I had a look on the 2+2 line with double pinkie and had a small carp almost instantly, but it seemed to be a lone fellow.  Back over to the bread line and another fish, so slow and steady, the a big skimmer on bread.

With a couple of hours to go I picked up the deck rig and toss potted a few maggots over, had an instant response, 3 foul hookers, 3 lost, they were coming to the feed going in, but still swimming off the bottom, bread rig back over the feed and 4th bite over it was a proper bite and fish netted.

Another quiet spell, back to the 2+2 line and had one more from there, again on pinkie, but again, it appeared to be a solo visitor.  Had a couple more persevering with the bread and thought I had about 40lb and it could be close.  Thankfully I put 45lb on the scales to win the match (and the silvers with my one skimmer - but the silvers was paid by default).