I drew peg 37 today, it’s by the car park and near the draw hut. Eddie Wynne said tench peg, but as I had seen since I had been there 36 and 37 had carp showing everywhere. My mind was still set on the silvers, and in any case I have seen this before only for the carp to disappear. I had plenty of casters and worms with me (too many) from the weekend left overs and what I had ordered. However, I’ve not seen a big need for worms myself so I decided on a three plan approach today. I picked three spots; top set plus two, and 11m in front and 11m off to the left in the middle. These areas were pretty much the same depth, but I thought I could feed these a little differently. Rigs were standard.5g or 4x16 with 16 GPM to 0.13, a shallow rig was set up but I never had a bite on it.
Starting at 10am I fed a small amount of worm with caster on my short line. Couple of balls of gbait containing casters and micro at 11m in front, and potted just casters off to the left. I started short whilst letting the two longer swims get going. Twenty minutes short and nothing. Over on the gbait nothing, off to the left and a 6oz tench, a small skimmer joined it and that was all I had after an hour! I couldn’t believe how bad a start I had and just hoped I could draw some silvers in as peg 36 and 40 were fishing for carp.
Two small tench and a skimmer then quickly obliged from the gbait line, I thought that this was now going to be better, but I fouled a tench and had 2 carp here soon after. I rested this line and refed, I resisted feeding gbait on the other lines. I was loose feeding casters over the 11m line to the left, and now more bubbles started to appear, but it was still a struggle to get a bite, triple red maggot did get me another tench and a skimmer but also a carp. Three hours gone and 12lb in the net, I needed a brilliant last 3 hours.
The fourth hour was better, and the short line was really fizzing now. I had only been potting in casters here (to avoid drawing carp in) but I started to throw casters in to try to make something happen. Trying maggots or casters in the hook wasn’t making a massive difference, and I was frustrated to lose a couple more fouled tench, and land a huge F1. But I knew that I now had fish short.
At 2pm with 2 hours left Glenn Bailey gave me a call to ask how the match was going, I said I had really struggled but might have 20lb of silvers. This coincided with me trying a worm on the hook again (despite not having fed worms on this line since beginning of the match). This time it was a revelation, tench, skimmer, tench whilst on the phone. My tench had mostly been averaging a pound, but I now had a couple knocking 4lb and skimmers up 2 1/2lb. With 25 minutes left my great spell of catching stopped and it was back to no bites, but I did have a big skimmer on the whistle, I knew that I had over 50lb after that great spell.
Reflecting on the match I had been told before by some regulars here that getting the silvers on the short line late was the way to bag, but in my previous matches here I had not managed to do that, glad I persisted today. The scales came to me from the Island where Gary Flinders on peg 1 was best with 208lb, think Hadyn Withers on peg 4 had 20lb of silvers (I forgot to get pictures of the sheets doh). Antony Piekielniak on peg 40 had caught well all day and he went into to the overall lead with 219lb. My turn next, 20lb of accidental carp, then silvers net one goes 26lb 12oz… silvers net two 26lb 13oz. I was well happy with 53lb 9oz. I carried on packing up and chatting and didn’t follow the scales, but Gary Bowden on peg 34 reckoned I would win the silvers.
Picture below is of my second net of fish.
Eddie Wynne gave us the results..
1. Antony Piekielniak 219-07 p40
2. Gary Flinders 208-06 p1
3. Simon Stacey 157-12 p2
4. Gary Bowden 155-14 p33
5. Paul Faiers 137-14 p6
6. John Dursley 133-14 p5
Silver's
1. Tim Ford 53-09 p37
2. John “Turkey” Thompson 33-02 p31
I was most pleased to win the silvers, and on my 5 matches here since June I have won the silvers 4 times, just messed up last time fishing for carp lol! I can honestly say I have loved fishing Acorn for the silvers, and I have loved meeting and chatting with the crew of anglers that fish here. I mean I even looked forward to seeing Merv Sivell who always manages to make me laugh with his great wind ups, Up The Gas Merv 😂.
I will probably have to be retired to fish these matches again, but it’s been a blast and I look forward to it. We ended with a few of us enjoying a pint in the Prince of Waterloo in Winford, happy days 😊😊😊
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