Acorn Clevedon A.A Saturday Open.

Back to the normal Saturday match times today fishing 10 - 4 so other options apart from down the edge would come into play until they ventured in closer later in the day, The bonus peg was in and when it turned out to be peg 12 and the pegs below left for pleasure anglers there was a good chance it would go with the right angler on it, Into the draw and I picked out end peg 38 which I was happy with as this tends to hold some of the bigger residents, Only to find out for some reason it was a re-draw to some un-know cock-up" back in the hat still with the chance of the bonus peg up for grabs but it wasn't to be as my next pick turned out to be bridge peg 33, Ok for a few fish although the bridges tend to hold a smaller stamp but I wasn't best pleased to find out everyone except for me and Nick Green on peg 34 the opposite side of the bridge had at least 2 empty pegs each' So Gabrial who was fortunate enough to draw peg 12 was laughing really as the next angler to him was on peg 16! He Does well on this venue with his positive approach and I fully expected him to come out on top at the end of the day.

With the payout being the top 2 and top silvers I kept a positive mind and would make the most of the day, I decided just to spend the day fishing hard and soft pellet as I didn't have chance to get to buy some bait so took with me what I had hanging around, For a start I had a rig to fish tight over to the bank in 18inches of water with an AS1 Drennan 4x10 float on 0.13-0.11 and an 18 wide gape pellet hook, A rig to fish shallow up against the bridge on a longer line where I would feed 4mm hard pellet by hand and use the same rig to fish tight in against the bank close in on both sides with the depth around 2ft. As well as Nick on peg 34 I had Lee Waller to my right on peg 30 so I thought my best inside line would be towards him where I had more room to draw fish from.

 Lee Waller.

 

 At least the hen liked the micros"

At the all in I began feeding the inside lines by hand with 4mm hard pellet and the same to the middle of the bridge before starting tight over with a 4mm expander on the hook feeding some dampend micro and hemp over the top via a small cad pot. The first 40mins went as expected and I was into small carp from the off and was estimating on 16lb in the net as well as a few F1's before they started to come up in the water and I had a couple of foul hookers so cut back on the feed until I had caught two fish before topping it up, This did settle them down and although I had a couple of fish to 4lb things were slowing and I new I had to rest it and try something else.

Switching to the shallow  rig with a hard banded 6mm pellet on the hook next to the bridge saw me miss a few fast bites but it wasn't until I shallowed to around 10inches I found the culprits to be small skimmers so this line was soon left alone' Trying down to my insides failed to produce but I fully expected for fish to turn up with regular feeding so went back across to the far bank and caught what I could cutting out the micro pellet replacing them with hard 4mm pellet via the cad pot, At the half way point I had tried the bridge again a few times without success but though I had around 50lb in the net all caught tight over on soft or hard 4mm's, Around me I was guessing that Lee Had Around 30lb as did Nick next to me so felt i was doing ok but couldn't see how Gab was getting on (Probably a good thing!) down on 12.  Brain Hadley who I had a quid with today was having a few bigger fish down on peg 38!" (I new I wanted to draw it") so I had to make things happen if I was going to get anywhere.

I decided to start concentrating on my inside swims and by fishing various depths I started to pinch the odd better fish all on hard 6mm banded pellet, going into the last 90mins the fish turned up in numbers where I had been feeding 4mm's by hand twice each put-in on my top kit tight to the bank between me and the bridge, I found it best to have the bait a few inches off the bottom and after lowering the rig straight down feed 10 pellets or so twice and lift and drop the rig when I thought they had nearly reached the deck and 9 out of 10 times the elastic would be ripped out".

By swapping sides after each fish I caught I took a few bigger samples to 7lb right up until the whistle but hadn't a clue what I had weight wise although I did add another net before the end, Lee had decided to call it a day with 40mins to go and I felt I had enough to see off Nick next to me on peg 34 but new pegs 38 and 36 around the corner had caught well to. Brian was first to weigh and put 128lb on the scales which was a great start and I was convinced he had my quid today', Next up was Barry Cousell on peg 36 who had 121lb, Nick ended the day with 66lb before it was my turn, I had added a couple of nice tench down the edge in the last twenty min's which boosted my silver weight to 17lb odd and added to my carp total of 115lb gave me a total of 132lb to go into the lead and take Brian's pound after all!' It was short lived though as Mark Walsh (ON his own next to the opposite bridge!!!) took the lead again with 141lb odd before last to weigh and he didn't disappoint my outcome by having a terrific total of 210lb which was easily enough to win the match and add another £100 to his winnings from being on the golden draw, Well done mate. All was not lost though as I managed to pick up the silver by de-fault so picked up £20 to pay for the day.

 Winner Gabrial Skarba.

Overall Results -

1st Gabrial Skarba, (Un-attached)  peg 12 (Bonus peg) 210lb 6oz.

2nd Mark Walsh, (Clevedon.A.A) peg 20, 141lb 1oz.

3rd Dom Sullivan (Maver/Cadbury) peg 33, 132lb 10oz.

4th Brian Hadley (Weston-S-Mare) peg 38, 128lb 4oz.

Silvers - 

Dom Sullivan 17lb 10oz.