After another pit stop at H&H I was at the fishery in good time. I think there was 23 anglers in attendance today, so a decent turnout again. I was really hoping to draw pegs 9 to 12 which is where I thought the tench might be. However, I pulled out peg 33 which is one of the bridge pegs. Good mate and venue expert Gary Bowden was drawn on 36 and his peg looked alive with fish whilst mine looked like there were no fish present. Gary told me that 34 was the better peg but I should be able to catch tench that like to live under the bridge. Another venue expert Paul Faires was on 34 and told me he was going to fish for carp, but that I should catch at least 30lb of silvers.
My mind was made up, silvers it was. I set a 4x12 rig up for fishing top set plus one to the yellow pipe, and a 4x14 for fishing 11m further along the bridge about 2 feet away from the pipe (I did try another line about 6m but binned it). Both rigs had 0.13 to 16 GPM to cope with tench and any accidental carp.
Starting at 10 I fed just casters to begin on both lines, nothing in close so out to the long line. It was slow going and when I finally caught it was a 12oz tench. I had a couple more but felt like I needed to change my feeding, so started to feed gbait with caster and worm in it. This increased the fizzing but it was still very hard, after the first hour I had 4 tench and 2 skimmers that would be about 6lb. It all seemed rather slow for everyone, especially to my right on 31 and 29 Phil Cooper and Merv Sivell were still trying to catch a fish!
Going into the second hour the short line produced a perch and that was it, but I continued to loose feed casters here. My long line was now devoid of tench it seemed as when I did get a fish it was a skimmer. Similar to my last match here changing hookbaits and feeding seemed to be important. I had some skimmers that were probably 3lb, so although I was waiting a long time for bites they were worth catching. In the middle of the match I managed to get a couple of skimmers and another perch from the short line. I had a bit of a problem though when one of the skimmers jumped out of the water and landed between the two pipes! I had to walk along the bank to get the landing net in the gap lol.
During the match I witnessed something like I have never seen before. I heard a loud buzzing getting louder, I thought it was a drone. I then noticed what I think was some hornets buzzing around me, I looked to my right and up and there were literally thousands! My first reaction was concern, if they decided to sting I would be jumping in the lake! Thankfully they slowly drifted off and disappeared, phew.
The last two hours were a grind, hardly any silvers and lots of small carp. Though in the last 15 minutes I had 3 skimmers, the very last one from the far line jumping between the pipes, this time I had to walk along the bridge net it and then feed the top set under the rail just as the all out was signalled. I looked at my clicker, it had 42lb on it for silvers, would that be enough?
My estimated weight was pretty good, with the scales registering 40lb. As you can see it was mostly skimmers today, think I had 6 tiny tench, 4 perch and 2 eels. I also weighed in 38lb of carp. To my right Phil and Merv didn’t weigh, but Paul on 34 had done well on carp.
Overall
1st Gary Bowden 179lb peg 36
2nd Antony Piekielniak 166lb peg 12
3rd Paul Faires 160lb peg 34
Silvers
1st Tim Ford 40lb
2nd Eddy Wynne 34lb
Full peg sheets below. Well that’s my third silvers win on the trot at Acorn, but I still feel that I have not got sorted. Think I have 2 more chances to fish it before I go back to work. Off to Bitterwell Thursday for the over 55 match.
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