Acorn Fishery Saturday Open. (Saturday)

For the first time this year I had a chance to get back to Acorn fishery to paddock lake which holds a good head of fish and with the weather improving we were all looking forward to getting a few bites, The on-site café was open in plenty of time to savour a full fry up before the draw and with 15 booked in it wasn't to bad a turn out for the first Saturday Clevedon.A.A had a chance to run an open on this lake, The pools money had increased to £20 from £12 which can always be a cause of debate depending how you look at it? My own view happens to be I would rather pay the extra and if lucky enough to reach the frame at least you should have paid for your day, where as a cost cutter so to speak can leave you out of pocket even if your do sneak in the money' We all have to realistic and tell the truth as we all entry matches to get a result otherwise we wouldn't entry in the first place" I remember paying £20 entry fee to the super league 20yrs ago when my earnings were minimal but if you did pick-up it was well worth it' I remember winning a match when I was about 18yrs old and ended up winning more than I could earn in a fortnight!. The only option in my eyes is you have a lower entry fee and have an optional super pool but the chances are most will entry both anyway as were all competitive!. Back to match and we soon had the draw, After a chat with a few others I had in my own head I just wanted to avoid peg 6 as I felt you didn't have as much room as some of the pegs to draw fish from as it was in the corner, what did I get? Yep peg 6! Owe well...

Arriving at my peg it was pleasing to know peg 7 was empty which gave me plenty of room to fish a line at 13mts in the open water which I planned to attack with sweet corn as I've had a few fish doing this lately so set up a 4x12 Chanti on 0.13-0.10 with a 16 808 hook to fish in 5ft or so of water, a 4x12 chanti to fish in 3ft of water at the end of the island by the bridge at 14mts on the same line with an 18 808 hook, and the same size float to fish down my right hand edge and back towards the empty pallet on my left in 4ft of water, with time to spare I assembled 4x10 chanti to fish up in the water in-front of the bridge which would be bit of a gamble but a good starting option whist I watched the response of others swims.

At the start I fed a palmful of corn on the 13mt open water swim towards the next peg, fed a few 4mm hard pellet with the catty towards the empty pallet and fed a nugget of micro pellets on the point of the island, starting the match around 2ft from the bridge straight in-front of me with a 4mm hard banded pellet on the hook with the rig set about 2ft deep I decided not to feed anything and just keep ploping the rig in to make some noise, ten minutes later I had a 3lb carp so stuck at it for the first hour adding 5 more carp of similar size before things started to slow. By now the wind had picked up and was blowing right into my swim' I did try on the deck with the open water swim rig near the bridge but things didn't improve, I managed one carp off the point of the island on a 4mm expander pellet but again it was wind effected making presentation really hard so it wasn't long before I was on my other lines.

The open water swim saw me add a small tench on corn and to my inside right margin I took two 4lb fish before things went quite, The wind was now blowing straight in the peg and with the sun in-front of me I was having a nightmare trying to see the float, I added a few more shallow by the bridge before it was like fishing in a washing machine" so the last few hours I spent scratching around trying to catch from my other lines but this didn't really produce as I hoped, a couple of bigger fish came on the corn line in the open water but the last two hours were hard resulting in just two more fish, both from down the edge towards the empty pallet one of which came on the whistle' it turned out to be a frustrating day weather wise as I'm sure I could have caught more from next to the bridge and was disappointed not to have more from my inside swims as I expected them to produce later in the match. from what I could see a few fish had been caught, by the time the scales arrived Thyer's Captain was leading the way with 65lb odd but I was surprized to end up with 55lb which saw me end up 3rd on the day behind team mate James Gunter from peg 8 who included 13lb of silvers in his 59lb total, Thanks to the higher pool entry it meant I walked away with £40 in the pocket, Along with Nick Harvey's normal quid' so it wasn't a total disaster after all, Top silvers went the way of Mark Bromsgrove & Andy Gard who both finished the day with 21lb odd.

 My catch.

My next panned match is at Shiplate Farm Main lake on Monday so looking forward to that as I haven't fished in in match conditions yet this year and with the lake containing a good head of bigger skimmers and bream there are a few options depending where I draw??.