Saturday, 16 October 2021

Penultimate Summer Open, Acorn, Saturday 16th October 2021

 For various had a few dropouts on this match, so more of a 10 peg knock-up than a real open, but there was still the optional series to fish for.  Last match in this series, I drew peg 1, couldn't believe it when I drew it again, another trip over the bridge onto the island.

Unbelievably, Martin Rayet drew peg 5 again, he's never off it!!

On peg 3 I had my old mate Paul Faiers, he was going to fish for silvers, a bit risky as I only pay one in the silvers and you can win both.  I set up two rigs for across, identical except one with a 18 LWG tied with a band in a hair, the other with a 20 LWG to 0.13. One rig for the RH edge, another for the LH edge which is deeper and a strung out rig for where I could find 3' of water.  Plenty of fish moving around, so I didn't set up a rig for on the deck.

Started across with a 6mm banded pellet, toss potting 4mm, had a couple of liners a small carp on it, it didn't seem right, switched to a 4mm in the band, that brought a few small carp, far too small.  I switched to the maggot rig and that did get a response from a couple of better fish, but it was slow going.  I'd been flicking a few maggots on the 3' deep line and went over that with the light strung out rig and a red and a white maggot on the hook, I had a couple of tench and some skimmers, along with a couple of carp, enough bites to keep me at it and it seemed to be fishing hard for most.

I did try the RH edge much earlier than I would usually, I had a instant fish from it and then nothing.  Back across and I had  run of carp around the 1lb mark, but I'd need to get some of their bigger brothers to do any good.

I hadn't seen any sign of activity in the LH edge, but it was a couple of feet deep, so the fish don't always give themselves away in that depth.  The last 80 minutes I spent down that edge, think I may have underfed it at one stage as the bites dried up, but the net I started with 80 minutes to go had 40lb in at the end, the quiet spell I suffered was costly, as my 121.14 was third on the day.

1. Gareth Boycott 136.05 peg 9
2. Glenn Calvert 133.02 peg 38
3. Chris Fox 121.14 peg 1
4. Martin Rayet 116.06 peg 5
5. Glenn Bailey 97.09 peg 15
6. Joe McMahon 96.13

Silvers

1. Paul Faiers 31.15 peg 3
2. Dave Haines 21.12 peg 40


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