Acorn Tuesday Tenner.

After  Four days fishing on the trot I just couldn't muster the energy to come home and right the blog last night for day five so I will get on with it whilst fresh in my mind, With the Wife having the day off she joined me along with Steve (Peanut) Howell who fancied a trip although we did have a box of tissues just incase he was to have a nose bleed by going elsewhere other than Shiplate Farm" lol, Only joking as my view is if you chose a venue that suits then why have the need to leave' My only fear of this as anglers can become complacent and tend to stick to certain methods and baits and as we all know just because matey sacked up on it last week last week doesn't mean it will work the next time and by visiting other venues and fishing with other anglers you can only improve what you all ready know and use it to affect next time at you local'

Onto the Day and after a breakfast treat from Steve we arrived to find 14 fishing which is nice for a Tuesday as its about the average at most commercials at the moment, Not knowing what pegs were in today as we were having a good chat with others at the start Steve drew and ended up on peg 31 at the top end of the lake and I ended up on peg 16 which I wasn't best pleased with as I had it in the first rd of the Acorn League and as well as being further across than the pegs around it I Struggled in a gale for 15lb odd, Today was different as it was now a lot milder and I had no wind to contend with, The plan was to fish across infront of the bulrushes with Expanders on the hook over micro as tight in as I could get which was about 2ft deep being my normal float a 4x10 chanti on 0.13-0.11 and an 18 808, A rig to fish down the track at dead depth over 4 and 6mm hard pellet on the same line but a slightly heavier 4x14 float and an 18 PR478, and a 4x12 rig to fish the bottom of the inside shelf towards the empty pallet on my left. for Company today I had Bob Smith on peg 14 and Barry Fitchew on peg 18 who was going to fish for silvers all day and leave the carp alone and I helped him along the way with a pint of casters as I didn't plan to fish for them today.

At the start I cupped in half a pot of hard 4mm down to the pallet, A slightly smaller amount along with a few large 6mm expanders added and started tight over to the bulrushes with the light rig with a 4mm expander on the hook, I fed a sprinkle of micro pellet via a cadpot and had a fish straight away of 2lb thinking it was going to plan sailing I shipped out and fed the same but ended up with a foul hooker a switch to the worm gave me a fish that came off then another foul hooker although they looked like proper bites' I had noticed there were fish in the reeds as when I would lift the rig I would spook fish even though I was feeding next to nothing" I soon shallow up a foot and the float just sat there despite bobbing the rig around the far bank with various baits and fishing from an inch off the deck to 10inches deep so I started a new line infront of another clump of rushes and had a 3lb fish before another up the wrong un" By now Bob who had been catching skimmers at the bottom of the shelf whilst targeting the carp had switched to fishing shallow tight to the bank and had a few carp straight away I had a gap to my left at 16mts so switched to a shallower rig tight to the bank the fish would spook as soon as I went near it and the two gaps infront of me had hidden bulrushes in which I only remembered after the match started meaning I couldn't get the rig in properly" Two hours of fathing around I new I had to target the lakes larger fish as I could see Match organiser Mike Chapman over on bridge peg 40 catching well as well as Dave Wride over on 36 and Mike owens on 38, I switched to the short open water swim with a 6mm Expander on the hook, A missed bite and 1lb skimmer saw me change to a whole worm on the hook but after a few dinks which I expected to be skimmers tugging at the worm, I decided to feed another half pot of hard 4mms and change to loose feeding 6mms by hand to my right as my swim was off to my left and because the breeze had picked up the float was towing towards me to much to get the presentation, I did try between the swim down towards the pallet without any signs and across where I began feeding just hard 4mm pellet and fish 6mm on the hook which I thought worked with a 3lb fish before more foul hookers'.

By now I had noticed Mike Owens and Mike Chapman get up for another net and with a couple of hours to go I decided to concentrate on my short lines, Starting back to my left hand swim where I had been cupping the bait in with a whole worm I missed a good bite but it was towing to much towards me so I swapped to my right where I had fed 6mm by hand again on the worm and within a minute I had a 5lb fish followed by one of 7lb which I lost at the net" then I had a few liners and noticed bubbles not long after I feed so got a new rig to fish shallow with an 8mm pellet, 3 nice fish on the trot the it slowed so I switched back to the deck with a banded 8mm, Two fish in the next 10mins followed but they seemed to have backed off so a switch to the pallet swim was tried but again no luck so I threw a hand full of dead red tight to the bank in the shallow water to see if they turn up there late.

For the last hour I swapped between fishing shallow and on the deck on the short line pinching the odd fish of better stamp but was never going to do the damage today as it turned out Mike had got up to lend Mr Chapman on peg 40 his spare Keepnet as he had been bagging all day' It so proved as he won the day with a cracking 154lb catch mainly on hard 6mm pellet feeding the same shallow against the bridge and it turned out to be his best match weight ever which helped for a better day so Well done Mate.

This part of the lake proved the place to be as venue regular Dave Wride  over on 36 ended the day with another great weight of 132lb to take second place followed by Mike Owens stuck in the middle of them ending the day with neck ache and 81lb to take third, I remember the top silvers weight being 16lb from peg 33 next to the bridge but didn't get the guys name sorry, A good day to try a few different things and I ended the day with around 45lb of carp and a 5lb of silvers so a few things learnt, Peanut ended the day with 50lb odd catching the lakes smaller stamp and after dropping him home we made a detour to invest in a new camera ready for my next trip as I forgot to mention after the match on Shiplate Monday I had a fish of 17lb and couldn't take a pick so Ile be a bit more careful with this one!

Full Result-  1st Mike Chapman (Over 50's) peg 40 154lb 12oz

                      2nd Dave Wride (Sensas Thyers) peg 36 132lb 4oz

                      3rd Mike Owens (Sensas Thyers) peg 38 81lb.