Saturday, Acorn Fishery League Rd 5, (Paddock Lake).

Yesterday saw me back at Acorn for the next round of the league, It all started off ok in the first couple of rounds but the wheels have fell off in the last two' It seems to be a case of if your not on um you catch nowt else at the moment, Into the draw & I didn't think thinks would be much better today after drawing peg 19 on the straight, It happens to be one of the widest just over 14mts but unfortunately we were in the worse of the wind so trying to fish across would be fun"..

I set up three rigs, One for right over on the shallow 18' inch shelf, One for 13mts in around 3ft of water & a rig to fish at 8mts slightly to my down the track, I had Tom Casidy next to me on peg 15 & Paul Nicole's  the other side of me on peg 19 both of which were in my section along with a couple of swims over the other side of the lake, I started on maggot just short of the far back in the shallower water & hooked two carp in two dob-in's but they were both foul hookers & came off", Ten minutes later I had one in the mouth but a smaller fish around 2lb until I got it to the net that is before it shed the hook! Paul had started the day across but chose to start dobbing bread & although I discounted it due to the water colour he had netted two smaller size carp on it in the first 30mins, After my early signs the fish soon disappeared in the shallower water, I tried a few new areas across & even gave the bread a go but still nothing, Tom had netted a carp & had a few bits to go with it but after 90mins I was still to catch'.

 I went on the 13mt line again with maggot where I had fed a few of the same along with some micros, I had a bites straight away which turned out to be a 4oz skimmer so blank avoided" Back out & I had a 1lb gold fish" then nothing, I switched to expander on the hook but still no signs so topped it up & went back across, I did have a carp straight away, Shame it was 6oz's" & ten minutes later had an F1 over a 1lb but bites were hard to come by, Not much to tell about the rest of the day, I kept rotating lines looking for fish but it was a right gruller, I never had a bite down the track where I had been feeding corn all day, I managed one more better F1 from the 13mt line along with a few hand size skimmers, But going into the last hour I managed two better carp & two smaller samples tight over in the shallow water again on maggot, I thought I had over taken Tom until he threw a spanner in the works by catching a 4lb fish with minutes to go, Paul had only added a few small fish from the deeper water so hard for us again today. When the scales arrived Glen Calvert was top weight with 45lb odd from peg 9 but not in are section, Tom finished with 17lb 4oz in total & I knew it would be close between us but it wasn't to be as I fell just short with 16lb 11oz, Meaning I missed out on the £50 for second in the section as Mark Walsh looked to have easily won are section from the peg behind the shed on the opposite bank. It wasn't until I was packing away I realised my pole sections were jammed together, With the assistance of Tom & Paul on the end of each section I gave it the old rolling approach in the middle, It took a while to get it moving & just as I thought it was going to come free bang went my number 8 section!" Nobody to blame though but it didn't make for a good day as I soon slung my kit in the van & buggered off home with the remaining piece of number 8 section still stuck in the ass end of the number 7". So don't know who actually won the day sorry but I know a few struggled for bites again today, Felt really deflated when I arrived home things can only get better hey"..