Acorn Fishery Costcutter

 These Tuesday matches are quite nice, shame I’ve only got one more I can fish. By leaving home before 7am I seem to get ahead of the traffic and get a good run down. There were lots of large puddles around on Tuesday morning after the heavy overnight rain, so steady driving was a necessity.

About 22 fishing today, and with a Southerly wind a large part of the lake was going to be affected by the 15 to 20 mph winds. I drew peg 13 which was in the wind, and certainly not flat calm like a few weeks ago when I drew 12 and had a lot of tench. Gary Bowden told me it was a great carp peg and that I should fish for them today, another angler said similar and so I was turned from my usual all out silvers approach. However, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing.

I got to my peg and realised the wind would keep most of the pole sections in the hold-all. I set up a method feeder for fishing across, a paste rig for top set in front (0.17 to 12 XSH), a 4x14 for the margin with same terminal gear, lastly a 4x16 rig for silvers at top set plus two sections. I had Paul Faires on my left on 15 who knows this place like the back of his hand, he used to only fish for silvers but now he’s all carp. At the weekend the silvers was won with 80lb of skimmers and there was a 60 and 50, looking at past results my peg hadn’t featured in silvers weights.

When the match started I thought I would feed some casters and then fish the method feeder. That was my first mistake of the day! As I struggled on the tip Paul and above him Tony Wittcomb both began by fishing short and both were catching, the guy on 12 also on the tip had nothing. After 25 mins of wasting my time I dropped in on my paste line at top set, had a 7lb carp and missed a bite, that was it. Paul and Tony stopped catching and switched to the method feeder across and caught on this… I went back on the method for nothing at all. Paul had micros on his feeder the same as me.

1 hour and 20 minutes in I gave my silvers line a try, it wasn’t easy in the wind at first with just a roach, but after 40 minutes of trying it I had a few small tench but I thought I was going to be miles off the pace like this. I was probably 50lb behind Paul by now and I guessed that my only chance was to catch some carp in the margins and short, but I would need to bag up in the last 2 hours. An odd fish was coming in to my margin and I caught one and lost one but then had to rest it. A few carp turned up on my paste line, but they were small, and Paul

Was now catching lumps in his margin and I was getting well and truly battered. I felt out of my depth, knowing I was doing it all wrong but not having the slightest idea of what to do to improve things. Paul was though feeding gbait in his margins whilst I was feeding micro, was that making that much difference?

I limped through the last couple of hours catching odd fish on paste and another couple in the margin, all the while thinking why didn’t I just stick to fishing for silvers which even if I didn’t frame with I would have enjoyed more. 

The guy on 12 fished a method feeder all day around his peg, and he had 86lb that just beat me by a pound I think (I didn’t take much notice of my weight), my silvers were just under 8lb. Paul weighed in 187lb to give me a big lesson and show his class on this venue. He didn’t win though as Mr consistent Gary Bowden won with 211lb from peg 4. Gary caught on pellets short today feeding micro.  Another great angler Gary Flinders was third from sheltered peg 31 with 172lb mostly from his margins where he fed micros. 

Kev Perry took the silvers win with just 27lb from peg 23 and Turkey had 23lb for second from peg 1.  I can’t say for sure I would have beat those weights, but had I fished for silvers for 6 hours I would have liked to think I could’ve. Pretty much I messed the whole thing up today, and was glad to have a cider in the pub with Gary and Tony. I just don’t feel comfortable fishing for carp at the moment, so I’ve got one more chance to get a crack at the silvers next week here. This Sunday it’s back at Newbridge for the pairs series, and praying for a few fish in the peg this time.