Acorn Costcutter, Tuesday 15th March 2016

Sometimes, a bright idea acted on in haste, turns out to be something of mistake, today was one of those.....  I thought it might be a good idea to get out and banish Sundays horrors to the shadows of history.  Acorn, not to far, reading Ray's (Bazeley) facebook reports it seems to be waking up and a few fish coming out and Tony (Rixon) was going and offered a lift.

All the above seemed to outweigh my usual reasons for avoidance of snake lakes and after I donned my chef's hat and rustled up a full English for Tony, off we set.  The sunshine had brought a few out, although it was the fact I had a day off, not the weather, for me and I managed to pull one of the favoured bridge pegs out of the ping pong ball bag, No22.  It was never the best of the bridge pegs, but my knowledge of the venue is somewhat rusty, as I haven't been here since 10th March last year.

I set up a Hillbilly Chump to fish at full depth, this was OK for all over the peg as the depth varied by only 6" all over the peg.  A MW Pear to fish up the shelf, another to fish shallower, for bread or maggot dobbed along the far bank grasses.  Finally a margin rig to fish down to the pallet of 23.

Bait tray consisted of maggots, casters, soft pellet and micros.  Staring at depth it took 20 minutes to get a bite, this was a fat little 4oz Perch.  A look up the shelf, just cupping in half a dozen maggots and it took until 50 minutes in to get a carp, a lively 4lber.  I then hooked and lost one, landed another about 1lb.  This line died off, so along the bank away from the bridge and a 2oz carp was my reward, then a roach and another perch.  That was it until 2pm, when I had a 3lb carp over a line I had fed a few micros, no other bites, I kept a couple of the lines frugally fed, I fed another with a catapult and potted a few in by the bridge, none of which resulted in a bite.

Eddie Wynne was on peg 21 the other side of the bridge and he had 3 or 4 fish against the bridge just short of halfway, so I cupped 15 maggots my side and tried to encourage the fish to come my side - they didn't, but they also buggered off from Eddies peg as well.

One odd thing about the peg, was that the bridge is in the water from my bank until about halfway across and then clear of the water from halfway to the far bank.  There was a stiff breeze blowing straight down the lake into the bridge, if I fished the nearside the float presented perfectly, from halfway over to the far bank it was pulling hard from R-L.  I tried a 0.8g wire stemmed float and that was still being tilted by the strength of the tow, I would have needed a flat float to hold it there steadily!!

So, another DNW for me, as my 8 or 9lb was nowhere, but again I wasn't alone as a few were packing up early and drying their nets out. Unbelievable that I go there, draw a bridge peg and not one bridge peg in the frame!!!!!

1st  Dave Stephenson  peg 38  48.13
2nd Mike Owens peg 18  39.07
3rd D Chidzoy  peg 5 36.06
4th K Jefferies peg 27  35.06
5th Dave Wride peg 25  31.04
6th Tony Rixon peg 30 28.09