Saturday we headed to Clevedon for the latest of Chris Fox’s opens, the draw time is now a bit later at 9:45 but I still managed to be running late and messaged Nick to say I’d meet him up there for breakfast. Bellies full we headed to Acorn and with a full house of 28 anglers, it was pretty busy in the shop.
The draw got underway and I was hoping for a nice silvers peg, something like 34, 36, 38 or 40 would do me. Nick drew 37 and then I pulled out number 6 which is new one for me, it’s a corner peg which can be brilliant for carp but it also has a bridge going across to the island and the tench have been showing in the bridge pegs so I quite fancied it.
The weather was glorious and we were in t-shirts to begin with
I set up two Preston Innovations F1 Maggots to fish top two plus two, 11.5 metres towards the bridge and also at 10 metres in open water to my left. On the side tray I had lots of maggots plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 and Dark groundbait.
The all in was signalled and I fed all three lines with groundbait and maggots before starting at 11.5 metres where there were already loads of blows coming up, a bite after a few minutes resulted in a lovely 3lb tench which was a great first fish. I was getting lots of indications but my next three fish were carp and after an hour I only had one tench in my silvers net so it was time to have a look on the short line.
It took a little while to get a bite from a nice skimmer, a big tench followed and after a brilliant second hour, I’d added 22lb of mainly tench and started my second silvers net. I could see Nick catching some big skimmers, then I had one pushing 4lb and was still getting plenty of bites. It was lovely fishing and I wasn’t hooking that many carp.
With around two hours to go, it got windy, the temperature dropped a few degrees and I had to put my coat on. Bites slowed a bit on the short line and it felt like it needed a rest, I’d still been feeding maggots on the other two lines so I’ve gone back to 11.5 metres where there were still loads of blows coming up. The float sailed away and after a short scrap, I landed a 1.5lb tench and it was all going rather well! Of course that then meant the next bite was from a carp and when I foulhooked one that led me a merry dance, it was time to switch swims again and I tried the left hand line for the first time.
I feared the worst when I had a carp first put in as it was around that time of day but thankfully the next fish was a nice tench and then I had a nice run of skimmers and pulled out of one as well. With around half an hour left, I came back on the short line and had another big tench although the grandstand finish didn’t really happen and I only added one more and a little bar of soap. I ended up with 31 fish which I thought would go around 50lb, hopefully a little more.
As the scales made their way around the pond I went to see what the weights were like, John Mills had the best silvers weight on 21 with 33lb 6oz and Matty Hamilton was leading the way with a massive 194lb 12oz from peg 19. Martin Rayet was on my left and had another big weight with 179lb, then my first silvers net was 26lb odd and the second added 32lb something to give me a total of 58lb 15oz.
I had 58lb 15oz of tench and skimmers to win the silvers
Graham on 40 had 162lb 5oz and then the scales headed on to the island where Gareth Boycott stormed to yet another victory with a huge 294lb 9oz (and he chucked back 10lb of silvers!) from peg 1, Bob ‘Bunghole’ Gullick on 2 weighed 183lb 4oz and Chris Harrison also broke the double ton with 208lb 10oz on peg 4.
Back at the results and I’d won the silvers, Paul Faiers had the next best weight with 45lb+ of skimmers from peg 34 and Nick also had 30lb of silvers.
1 – Gareth Boycott (Acorn) – 294lb 9oz
2 – Chris Harrison (Acorn) – 208lb 10oz
3 – Matty Hamilton (Acorn) – 194lb 12oz
4 – Bob Gullick (Acorn) – 183lb 3oz
5 – Martin Rayet (Acorn) – 179lb
Silvers
Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 58lb 15oz
I had a nice pick up of £65 and a lovely days fishing, I think there will be some huge silvers weights as the weather warms up a bit more.
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Coombe Farm
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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