Saturday, 15 May 2021

Acorn Winter League R4, Saturday 15th May 2021

 Back to Acorn for round 4 of the rearranged winter league, free draw this week before two rotations to finish the league off. I wanted to draw B section, so my rotation would be B,C & A, but no, I was drawn peg 5 in A section, its a good peg, but I just didn't fancy it today because the wind was off my back., This meant there was little ripple and the wind was pushing into the corner between 11/12.  There was a visible wind line taking the bit and pieces floating on the surface just past me and down to the corner.  Peg 5 is the one over the bridge and 9 is the other I have highlighted, tye corner past 9 is between 11 and 12.


 

I would usually rely on a hard pellet approach here, but maggots have also been catching fish, so I had both and having been beaten by peg 5 in the last match, I also had some paste, although that would be a last resort / throwaway line.

Started across on hard pellet and had a 7lb ghostie first put in, great start, I had 20lb after the first hour, all on hard pellet across and that was alright, the lake was fishing hard, I had 5lb in the next 30 minutes then nothing until 13:00, I switched from the far side top feeding maggots out of my hand off to my left - there is a big, flat shelf to the left of peg 5 and I fish right on the edge where it drops of sharply. 

From 13:00 to 14:00 I had 40lb and I was doing well, I was fairly confident that I'd keep them coming on maggots, but by 14:00 the bites had dried up, oddly, if I fished across, Paul on 9 stopped getting bites over there and got indications if I came short and it was the same for me when he fished short and long - odd as I would have ex[ected the fish to either settle or move between us.

The last 2.5 hours were a disaster, I really struggled and didn't have a carp from 14:00-15:30, last hour I had a couple of small carp and some carassios, I could see the others in the section catching in their edges, I never had a bite to my left hand edge and had to stand up to fish over a big clump of tall grasses to fish to my right in the edge, where I had one bite and one carp less that 3lb, whilst I could see some approaching doubles coming out elsewhere in the section.

I knew come the end that this was a bit of a disaster and would likely be my dropper, frustrating as I wasn't as far behind as I thought, that said, not sure what I could have done to eke out a few more fish in those barren spells, it was if they'd gone from the peg.  Paul on 9 was equally struggling and whilst I was 5th on the day, that was also 5th in section, so I am looking at two very good results the last two rounds to end up in the frame.

1. Glen Calvert 93 -07 p6 2. Bob Gullick 89-07 p1 3. Brian Slipper 87-07 p3 4. Kev Perry 83-04 p11 5. Chris Fox 77-05 p5 6. Darren Vowles 65-03 p22

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