Acorn Fishery Saturday Open.

I was going to have another day pleasure fishing but with the forecast to be nice I decided to take a trip to acorn to hopefully have another pop at the silvers if the draw was in my favour? Their were 11 fishing today with a few more new welsh lads coming over to have a crack at the venue, The Bonus peg was in today and for a extra quid it was worth the chance, I let Rob Hadley draw for me today as I was holding the bag at the time and I was thankful when I ended up on peg 20 which just so happened to be the BONUS PEG", Change of plan then as I would now fish for the win for the extra cash would be a bonus if results went my way.

Most fish lately have been taken down the edge over lots of groundbait but I didn't have that much with me so straight away my inside option was to feed hard 4mm pellet down the edge to draw some fish in later in the day, With the conditions being ideal my main line off attack was a few swims over to the far bank where I set up an 0.1g AS1 float on 0.15-0.13 and an 18 pellet hook to fish in around 2ft of water, My inside rig was around the same depth were I set up an 0.6 gram rig on 0.15 on a 18 PR478 hook. For company I had Brian Healey and Mark Walsh for company who both wanted to take me on for a nugget' so I couldn't refuse! lol, At the all in I cupped some corn and hemp tight to the bank on my left towards the empty pallet and began feeding my inside right margin by hand with pellet, I fed one of the far lines again with a bit of hemp and a few grains of corn and began the match fishing a 6mm expander over dampend micro fed via a tosspot, I thought this would give me a few fish early and I wasn't wrong having a 4lb carp first put-in, the first hour went to plan and by starting a new pellet swim further along the bank and by swapping between the two I kept the fish coming and on the 2hr mark I estimated to have around 50lb odd, Things were beginning to slow a little but by now others had switched lines but weren't catching much from what I could see so I felt it best to try and keep fish coming off the far bank as long as possible.

A few things I did pick up on was as soon as the fish showed signs of coming up in the water a added a few hard 4mms to the swim which seemed to keep them routing around on the deck, I did try hard pellet on the hook but without success as well as trying the corn line which only produced I fish after 5mins, I managed to catch a couple of fish down the margin I had been feeding by hand but they wouldn't settle and time seemed to be wasted trying to temp them so most of the match was spend over on the far bank on the 6mm expander but I was getting frustrated at the end of the match as yet again I had a job to keep them on the hook" By the end of the match I thought I had around 115lb but could see a few others had been catching well later in the day so it was all to play for, Top weight on the far bank opposite was 114lb from peg 34 before it was my turn, After 3 weighs my total went 138lb odd to take the lead, Brian never bothered the scales meaning I had won a quid and when walshy weighed 52lb odd  I was another nugget better off" Next to trouble the scales was Shaun Wilson on fancied peg 10 who also had 3 carp weighs and added to his silvers ended the day just short with 124lb odd, meaning it was up to Barry Council on peg 7 to upset the apple cart but it wasn't to be and I managed to take top spot on the day adding another £32 from the bonus peg to the £30 winnings not a great deal but a few quid never the less and I bet I didn't use more than £4 quid's worth of bait all day'  A good match all-round for me today and although the fish anywhere near the bridges tend to be of slightly smaller stamp making the decision to catch what I could for as long as possible paid off to good affect. Silvers went the way of Andy Gard  from peg 1 with 21lb odd.

 A few of my Fish.

 Runner-up Shaun Wilson.

 Silvers Winner Andy Gard.

 Barry Council.

High light of the day had to be after the draw when we went to set up it started raining and to make matters worse apart from my bib & brace all I had on was a t-shirt" After rummaging around in the car all I could find was an old dressing gown which was for the dog to lie on but I had no choice but to put it on whilst I tackled up much to the laughter of others with shouts of Steptoe ringing out but thankfully I had stopped before the all in so it gave me chance to dry it out"

 

Full results -

 1st Dom Sullivan (Maver/Cadbury Angling) Peg 20, 138lb 8oz.

2nd Shaun Wilson (Cwmbran Nobblers) peg 10, 124lb 12oz.

3rd Craig Challengworth (Wales) peg 34, 114lb 4oz.

Silvers -

1st Andy Gard (Acorn) peg 1, 21lb 4oz.