Acorn Fishery (Saturday).

It was a change of scenery for me today as this knock-up was to be held on the smaller top lake which I have never fished before, There are limited pegs on this lake so the numbers were keep down to 9 of us as not to cut each other off, I was told the average depth was around 4ft and the lake contains a good head of skimmers and smaller carp so with this in mind I would mainly be hoping to catch on maggots or soft pellet today. The weather certainly had changed with a bitter easterly wind and a big drop in temperature so I didn't think the weights would be great?

 After a nice breakfast roll from the on-site café it was time for the draw and fortunate for me for a change I managed to draw peg 1 which meant I was on the opposite bank to the others with the wind off my back slightly for which I was thankful as it was so cold just setting up'

I had what looked like a inviting margin for starters in amongst some dead stick-ups and a swim further along my left end bank at 14mts, So my first rig was a 4x12 chanti on 0,15-0.12 and an 16 808 hook were I still had around 4ft of water on both lines tight in as I could get on both lines, keeping it simple my only other rig was a 0.3g PB2 float on 0.13-0.10 to fish at the same depth in the open water at 12mts off to my left and 13mts straight in-front of me, For company I had team mate James Gunter opposite me on peg 2 who was using the new range of Maver keepnets which are rather bright to say the least' and yes I have got some but I'm saving them for when my new seatbox arrives just to brighten things up even more!.

 James.

I started the day by feeding a small ball of micro pellet onto the 13 open water swim and a ball of ground-bait at 12mts with some loose over the top containing some pinkies and dead red maggot. Starting the day looking for some early carp at 14mts against the bank with a 4mm expander on the hook feeding a few red maggots and micros via a cad pot it was a slow start as after an hour I still hadn't managed to put anything in the net off either of the inside lines, James had managed to net a couple of smaller skimmers and a few small fish in the open water so it was time for a change.

Starting on the 13mt line again with a 4mm expander on the hook it took a few minutes but then I had an 8oz skimmer and one of similar size shortly after but it was taking ages for a bite so I began to feed small balls of wetted micro pellets via a cadpot to draw a few fish into the swim, things began to pick up a bit and I found it best to feed then fish it out before topping it up again, catching the odd skimmer which all seemed to be of the same size'.

 

As the day went on the swim was dying right off and word was there were a couple of carp being caught so going into the last couple of hours I was hoping to catch a few carp from my other swims, I did try the 12mt ground-bait swim but all I had were a few blips' on anything I put on the hook. After trying my inside again without a sign I decided to re-plum towards the back of the stick-ups closer to the bank and start again feeding live maggot and fishing the same on the hook were I did manage to catch two small carp but was having trouble hooking debris even off the deck so concentrated switching between both the edge and along the bank at 14mts as my open water swims seemed devoid' which gave me another 2 carp before the all out.

Not taking long to pack up as it was freezing I didn't know what had been caught further down but thought I had more than who I could see at are end, James had managed 3 carp from down the edge but had struggled on his silvers lines and by the time the scales arrived I had 11lb odd to beat, with my 4 carp going 6lb added to my 8lb odd of silvers see me take the spoils with a total of 15lb odd for a hard but quite enjoyable day, the fish certainly didn't want much feed and tiny amounts gave me bites from skimmer's to keep me interested, being a cost cutter match I was never going to get rich but the £35 winnings more than covered the day, Even better it was nice to fish somewhere new and get a result. 

 

1st Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 1, 15lb 9oz.

2nd Rich Heatly (Clevedon A.A) peg 6, 11lb.

3rd James Gunter (Maver) peg 2, 9lb 12oz.

4th Robert Fogg (Clevedon A.A) peg 9, 9lb 5oz.