Acorn Pole Only Series, Final Round. Sunday 26th May 2013

Firstly, a big thank you to Veals, for their continued sponsorship of the event, providing vouchers for 4th place in both categories. Also to Tony Rixon at Avon Angling for taking messages and finding reserves when necessary and bringing his scales along.  Try and support your local shops rather than buying from the internet. Ken Rayner also supplied a set of scales, so a big thank you to Ken. We might have had some different results had we to guess the weight of each net......  Also to all those who took part, everyone who couldn't make a match ensured a reserve fished, giving us a full house of 32 every match.

Myself and Paul, along with Glenn (Calvert) and Kev (Perry) ventured to the Blue Flame after the match and discussed a few ideas for next year, which will see a couple of changes, to hopefully, keep the series interesting.  One definite is that the silvers payout will be reduced, as the percentage paid out, given the numbers actually targeting them from the start was, on reflection, too high this year.

The overall winners spot was up for grabs, if league leader Pete Bartlett didn't get a good result, with Mike Nicholls, Tom Thick, Lance Tucker and Tim Ford all ready to pounce if he did slip up. The silvers title was already sown up, with Mark Broomsgrove having a perfect 40 points, John Bradford was in a strong position to take 2nd spot and vying for 3rd (or 2nd if John had a disaster) was Paul Faiers, Glen Calvert, Kev Perry and myself.

An open draw today, the draw was likely to be vital to sort out the final positions, as those in contention needed to draw in a section together. B section threw together, Pete Bartlett, who drew peg 9 again, as he did in round 1, Tim Ford on 8 and Mike Nicholls on 6. A strong section with Tony Rixon on peg 1 always likely to disrupt their quest for points and I was handed peg 4 in this section by Tom Thick who drew for me.

The Silvers only saw two of the contenders pegged together, John Bradford and Kev Perry in C section on pegs 13 & 15 respectively. Myself in B section, Glenn on 30 D section and Paul on A3, this was going to make it difficult to make up ground on Glenn and Paul, as I was pretty certain they'd both return with 8 points.

The weather had been the curse of this series, with ice and high winds impacting the early rounds, today saw bright sun and a flat calm lake, although the Top Lake did get some ripple, which aided fish catching.

As the pools were paid up front for this match, I ran an optional £10 superpool and with this in mind, I decided to fish for carp, as I though that would be the more likely route to decent pick up, albeit the section was a tough one. I set up a rig for banded pellet to fish tight across (although quite why I ever thought I'd compete with Tony doing this I don't know, I must have had sunstroke), a rig to fish on the second shelf,  a paste rig for full depth and a rig to fish down to the pallet of peg 5.  I started tight across, pinging 4's and a 6 in the band, there was indications of fish, but no bites, a switch to 8mm pellet saw a carp in the net, but that was to be pretty much it for that line, the water wasn't too coloured and the pole seemed to make the fish shy away.

A switch to the second shelf and double maggot brought an instant response, taking me to 15lb of carp in the first hour, which was pretty much on a par with all those I could see in the section, as it started off slowly.  The next couple of hours were pretty tough, I had my one and only fish down the edge, on meat, I kept swapping between lines and picked up the odd fish, but was falling behind as Tim Ford and Pete Bartlett were now catching a few shallow.

I got off my box and set up a NG Gimp for full depth, pumped some Devil's Spawn and softened some micro's. The micro's and a couple of softened 4's went in, straight in front, at the bottom of the far shelves, the thinking behind this, was that no one in the section was fishing for silvers, so it looked my best chance of making it 5 out of 6 pick ups in the series. This produced a couple of skimmers and a carp, swapping to a short line which had been only fed with maggot, produced a 10oz perch and some 12oz skimmers, although this died well before the end.  By now there was plenty of carp activity tight to the far bank, but there was no point in going for them, I kept plugging away on the maggot, trying to get a bonus tench.

At the all out, I had 32lb of carp on the clicker and I thought about 5lb of silvers, the fish weigh heavier than they look, as the carp went 44.02 and the silver 7.02 for a silvers first in section, mission accomplished, but, I was still convinced that it wouldn't be enough and so it proved. Paul and Glenn won their silver sections, as did John Bradford, with Kev second to John.  Paul's 39.04 of silvers from the top lake saw him nick 3rd place from Glenn, on weight.

It turned out to be a really tight match, with the weights spread around, so a fitting end to the series.

On the day:

1) Brian Slipper 112.15 peg 33
2) Pete Bartlett 112.03 peg 9
3) Lewis Jones 108.14 peg 23
4) Tony Rixon 99.15 peg 1
=5) Tim Ford 87.12 peg 8
=5) Tom Thick 87.12 peg 18

Silvers on the day

1) Paul Faiers 39.04 peg A3
=2) Glen Calvert 21.04 peg 30
=2) Russ peck 21.04 peg A8
4) Dave Poole 17.10 peg A1

Series Overall Final Placings

1) Pete Bartlett 40 points 374.04
2) Tom Thick 37 points 358.01
3) Mike Nicholls 37 points 264.08
4) Lance Tucker 35 points 226.13
5) Tim Ford 34 points 277.09
6) Lewis Jones 33 points 365.14

Series Silvers Final Placings

1) Mark Broomsgrove 40 points  87.00
2) John Bradford 39 points 59.02
3) Paul Faiers 36 points 80.08
4) Glenn Calvert 36 points 71.12
5) Chris Fox 35 points 50.13
6) Kev Perry 34 points 35.03

Well done to Pete and Mark, both with a maximum 40 points, I will post up a full table later in the week.

Tony Rixon's Float Only, Round 1, Viaduct. Sunday 19th May 2013

I'd been looking forward to fishing this series for the first time and I wasn't too bothered whether I drew on Campbell or Cary and with 20 pegs on each, it was even chances.  Out of the coffee tin comes 118, I had already decided to make this a positive match just fishing for carp, so the bait bag contained 8mm pellets, 10mm meat and some paste.  This obviously influenced the rigs I set up, which were a full depth waggler, a shallow waggler, a paste rig, a shallow pellet rig, a full depth pellet rig and a meat rig to plunder the 5m line.

I consciously didn't set up a margin rig, John Bradford had advised me before the match "you need 20 elastic and 0.20 to get them out of those brambles".  I really don't enjoy that sort of fishing, dragging the fish and bits of sodden vegetation out.

I started on the full depth pellet line at 14m, catapulting 8mm's in, within a couple of drop in's I had a 2 or 3  liners and could see some swirls under the surface, so straight out with the shallow rig and I was soon attached to a 8lb common which was safely netted.  Back out and slapping the rig saw the float shoot under again, but this time disaster struck, the No4 section snapped, right at the base of the male 'ferrule'.  No idea why, I did have a tight line to the float and the fish hit it hard, but I have never had a section broken by a fish before.  So off the box, a spare No4 found, another topkit and back out on the shallow rig.

That had broken my rhythm and I had several attempts to snag the topkit with my waggler rod, to no avail and it was towed round the for an hour, before Anton on peg 123 managed to hook it and recover the topkit and rig unharmed and he landed the fish. It was slow going, just an odd fish on the 5m meat line, along with 2 bream and a big skimmer. A look on the waggler with meat saw a couple of bites before a 5lb fish came to the net, but that followed the other lines, in dying quickly once a fish had been caught.

With an hour and a half to go, I had 55lb on my clicker and about 8lb in the silvers net and I was falling well behind, so in sheer desperation I got off my box and set up a power kit, onto which went 0.20 line, a 0.18 hooklength and a 14 B911 X-strong. Fishing meat down to the brambles I had a bite every put in until the end, 2 tench and 37lb of carp. At the cost of another No4 section (poor pole handling technique - entirely my own fault), several hooklengths and plenty of lost fish. It really was a matter of lift into the bite and then just pull as hard as possible towards the middle of the lake. Several of the fish that had been hooked well inside the mouth, had 1" long rips where the hook had pulled through the flesh.

 My stubbornness cost me, as I was last but one in the section with my 109.01 total, the three weights that beat me were 116, 130 and 150, eminently doable had I not been determined to avoid the snag ridden margin. So a frustrating day and I wanted a good start to the league as the next match is at my bête noir, Landsend.

See Tony's blog for results.

Pole Only Series 2013, Penultimate Tables

I won't bother puttting up the tables without the worst result dropped, as these give a better indication of what you need to do in the last match - unless you are the 'Silver Machine' Mark Broomsgrove, as Mark will end with a perfect score of 40 in the silvers, even if he blanks......

A reminder that the last match is an open draw, so you could be on either lake and there will be a £10 optional superpool, paid out 75% / 25%  - 75% to Paddock Lake and 25% to the top lake, payout to be confirmed on the day.

We have been able to book the lake for next year and the dates will not clash with Landsend  or Tony Rixon's float only, they start slightly later to hopefully avoid the last of the ice breaking. To accommodate the later start and non clashes, the league will now be on consecutive Sundays with a week in between apart from the last two. dates:  6/4/14, 13/4/14, 27/4/14, 4/5/14, 25/5/14 & 1/6/14.

We had a reserve date for this years series, Sunday 2nd June, this will now be run as an open, contact Paul Faiers to book in.

Pole Only 2013 Overall Table With Worst Droppped
After Five Matches								Worst Result
Name			P		Weight			P	Weight
1	Pete Bartlett		32		262	1		3	23.04
2	Mike Nicholls		30		228	8		7	17.08
3	Tom Thick		29		270	5		4	12.04
4	Lance Tucker		29		169	5		5	19.07
5	Tim Ford		28		189	9		5	14.11
6	Lewis Jones		26		257	0		3	33.15
7	Chris Fox		25		145	7		2	18.09
8	Bob Gullick		25		143	8		5	37.13
9	Tony Rixon		24		200	4		5	6.08
10	Matt Tomes		24		158	7		2	15.06
11	Andy France		23		204	4		2	20.10
12	Brian Slipper		23		172	10		0	0.00
13	Mark Broomsgrove		22		161	13		3	15.02
14	Joe McMahon		22		158	15		0	0
15	Mike Owens		21		219	15		1	2.15
16	Paul Faiers		21		122	7		1	22.03
17	Dave Wride		21		111	7		1	8.00
18	Nigel Vigus		21		104	12		2	10.02
19	John Osborne		19		140	14		1	11.07
20	Bela Bakos		18		122	1		3	23.11
21	Russ Peck		17		112	7		1	12.14
22	John Bradford		17		88	9		0	0.00
23	Glenn Calvert		16		106	10		1	3.14
24	Kev Perry		16		93	6		1	13.00
25	Nick Harvey		16		72	3		0	0.00
26	Eddie Wynne		14		107	8		1	15.09
27	Glenn Bailey		13		149	2		2	1.08
28	Gordon Canning		13		74	1		1	7.14
29	Dave Poole		12		45	4		0	0.00
30	Jason Radford		11		100`	12		0	0.00
31	Ken Rayner		11		88	11		1	5.00
32	Paul Lasson		11		63	15		1	20.04

Pole Only 2013 Silvers Table With Worst Dropped
After Five Matches								Worst Result
Name			P		Weight			P	Weight
1	Mark Broomsgrove		32		80	4		8	7.12
2	John Bradford		31		47	10		0	0.00
3	Glenn Calvert		28		50	8		5	1.14
4	Paul Faiers		28		41	4		1	1.06
5	Chris Fox		27		43	1		3	1.00
6	Kev Perry		27		26	4		5	12.00
7	Nigel Vigus		26		22	4		3	7.10
8	Lance Tucker		25		33	10		0	0.00
9	Pete Bartlett		25		29	9		4	17.01
10	Russ Peck		24		39	0		3	1.03
11	Mike Owens		24		23	15		2	0.07
12	Paul Lasson		23		40	8		0	0.00
13	Dave Wride		22		45	4		5	3.02
14	Brian Slipper		22		30	13		0	0.00
15	Tony Rixon		21		25	5		0	0
16	Dave Poole		21		22	7		0	0.00
17	Eddie Wynne		21		14	0		0	0.00
18	Glenn Bailey		20		49	3		0	0
19	Andy France		19		26	13		0	0.00
20	Tom Thick		18		52	12		0	0.00
21	Ken Rayner		17		30	5		2	0.12
22	Matt Tomes		17		21	15		1	0.09
23	Joe McMahon		16		11	8		0	0.00
24	Tim Ford		15		24	1		0	0
25	Mike Nicholls		15		17	2		0	0.00
26	Bob Gullick		14		24	1		2	0.08
27	Jason Radford		10		16	9		0	0.00
28	Gordon Canning		10		12	14		1	0.04
29	John Osborne		10		12	1		1	0.15
30	Lewis Jones		8		3	2		0	0.00
31	Bela Bakos		6		7	2		0	0.00
32	Nick Harvey		2		2	4		0	0.00