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).