A frosty start on Saturday morning as I loaded the car before heading up to Acorn. The lake was flat calm and recent match results suggested we were in for another tough day as 8-10lb has been winning the silvers. A great turnout with 26 anglers fishing and when Foxy announced the draw, I was towards the end of the queue.
Nick pulled out 12 which he didn’t look overly impressed with and then before I even reached the draw bag, there was a bit of a cock up with the pegs so a re-draw was called! Second time around, Nick got peg 5 which is the best carp peg in Somerset and he looked a lot happier! I stuck my hand in the bag and got 31 which isn’t great although I have caught silvers there in the summer.
It was flat calm
I set up a couple of Preston Innovations F1 Maggots to fish two lines at 10 metres and top two plus two. Disco pinkies, maggots and Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait were on the menu today.
On the whistle I fed a little marble of gb and a few pinkies on the short line and 10 metres straight out before feeding the other longer swim a bit more positively. With everyone predicting it was going to be a tough match, I shipped out on the longer negative line and was expecting a wait for my first bite.
Quarter of an hour passed without an indication and not a lot was happening at our end with the exception of Brian Slipper on 29 who was fishing across to the island and catching the odd carp although he was having problems with foulhookers.
Then my float disappeared and on the strike I knew I’d hooked a skimmer and a decent fish of 12oz was a brilliant opener. Next chuck I had a little roach and when I had a 8oz skimmer (hooked in the fin!), I was starting to quite enjoy myself.
A couple more roach followed but it felt like I needed to rest it and was just about to feed another little nugget and switch lines when I hooked a fish that I was sure was tench by the jagging fight. I played it carefully due to the 0.08mm hooklength and netted a nice little red eyed bonus of around a pound.
The positive line was a waste of time but the rest had done my main swim some good as I had a little 3oz skimbob followed by a proper one of 1.5lb and another roach before it slowed again. After a fairly encouraging first couple of hours, the swim just faded, I did hook a small carp which I decided to take my time with and did all the hard work only for the hooklength to part at the net!
Despite trying it several times I had no bites on the positive line and only another little skimmer and a decent roach from the other 10 metre swim. I’d been feeding the top kit plus two line for 4.5 hours but dropping in on it, the float never even trembled and back out at 10 metres I hooked two more carp, landing a small one.
Brian had done well although he’d also lost a fair few that weren’t hooked in the mouth. The weigh in didn’t take long at our end, Chris Fox on 24 never had a bite, Steve Spencer and Walshy both only had a couple of fish and chucked back and then Brian had 53lb 7oz to win the section comfortably.
My single carp was 2lb 13oz and my 15 silvers (9 roach, 5 skimmers and a tench) weighed 6lb. Jo on 33 had a nice perch and an eel for 3lb 1oz, Barry Richards on 34 weighed 38lb 6oz and then Martin Rayet had 9lb of carp and a couple of decent tench for 6lb 12oz before Warren Beard on 38 had 7lb 5oz of big skimmers to win the silvers.
Overall, Howard Green won with a massive 153lb 2oz from peg 8, Nick was second with 88lb 3oz and Mark B was third on peg 9 with 78lb 3oz.
1 – Howard Green (Acorn) – 153lb 2oz
2 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 88lb 3oz
3 – Mark Broomsgrove (Acorn) – 78lb 3oz
Sections
A – Shaun Fillingham (Acorn) – 42lb 13oz
B – Dave Manning (Acorn) – 19lb 11oz
C – Brian Slipper (Acorn) – 53lb 7oz
Silvers
1 – Warren Beard (Acorn) – 7lb 5oz
So I wasn’t a million miles away and had missed a few bites but it was hard going for silvers and with this crazy up and down weather we’re having, it seems to be the same everywhere.
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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