The weekend arrived and of course another named storm decided to pay us a visit, although we’ve had so many now in quick succession, I’ve lost track of what letter we’re up to, E perhaps? We headed up to Acorn for the Xmas open but things didn’t get off to a great start when the burger van was shut so we had to wait for the pub to open at 8:00 which meant a rather rushed breakfast as the draw was at 8:45!
A full house of 30 anglers and there were some fine Xmas jumpers on display as Acorn were presenting a lovely hamper for the best one. The draw was announced and as per usual I was hoping to draw 38 or 40 on the near side but pulled out 18 and couldn’t really have been any further away! It’s not the best of areas but can be alright for silvers so hopefully I should get a few bites.
I set up a couple of Preston Innovations F1 Maggots to fish two lines at top three and four sections out as any further out would be nigh on impossible due to the wind. A nice and simple side tray with just disco pinkies, maggots and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait.
We got underway and I cupped in a little nugget of groundbait and a few pinkies on the shorter line while the top four was fed a bit more positively. A bite quite quickly on single pinkie resulted in a 5lb carp and I was getting a few indications, adding three small roach by the end of the first hour.
Trying the top two plus two line, I bumped a fish and then had a skimmer around 8oz. Tony Ponting next door was fishing a bit longer than me and landed a big perch before adding two decent skimmers in quick succession. Gareth Boycott down on 15 managed a couple of fish across on the pole before the wind got too bad and like many was now swapping between the tip and short pole.
I had a nice 2lb skimmer and then as soon as I hit the next fish, I knew it was a tench so took my time and a nice fish around 2.5lb was safely netted. When I had another of 1.5lb not long after, I felt there wasn’t much between Tony and me but then he had a nice tench and by my reckoning I needed two more decent fish.
Another 5lb carp didn’t help my cause and then Tony had another nice skimmer to go further ahead. I wasn’t getting loads of bites but did manage two more big skimmers while my neighbour had another and it was going to be close between us. My final tally was nine silvers (four skimmers, two tench and three little roach) and two carp while Tony had four big skimmers, a tench and that big perch. I did think he probably had the slight edge as my first skimmer had been a small one of 8oz while he had all decent fish.
When the scales reached our side, Glenn was leading with a brilliant 126lb from peg 5 while 8lb 9oz was winning the silvers. My two carp went 10lb 8oz and then my silvers weighed 9lb 14oz. Tony was next and as expected it was close, his silvers weighed 10lb 10oz and then to rub salt into the wound, his two carp gave him a total of 20lb 7oz to beat me by an ounce!
Back at the results and Glenn had won with Mr Rayet second next door with another great weight of 116lb 11oz. Tony won the silvers and then my name was called out as I won the £40 section by double default which was a welcome surprise.
1 – Glenn Calvert (Acorn) – 126lb 2oz
2 – Martin Rayet (Acorn) – 116lb 11oz
3 – Simon Stacey (Acorn) – 71lb 3oz
4 – Joanne Wingate (Acorn) – 69lb 13oz
Sections
A – Des Shipp (Preston Innovations) – 49lb 6oz
B – Andy Gard (Acorn) – 65lb 9oz
C – Bob Gullick (Acorn) – 43lb 5oz
D – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 20lb 6oz
E – Walshy (Acorn) – 28lb 4oz
F – Lee Masey (Acorn) – 59lb 1oz
Silvers
1 – Tony Ponting (Acorn) – 10lb 10oz
Best Xmas Jumper – Paul Elms
Terry ‘The Toast’ very kindly gave me a £5 donation on Friday and with £2 each from Nick P and me the Nugget-O-Meter went up to £36.
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 – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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