Acorn Tuesday costcutter

A nice clear drive down to Acorn today, which was a lot better than the drive home due to a nasty accident on the motorway near Magor. Took me 40 minutes from the bridge to home. Usually takes 15 minutes. Anyway no breakfast anymore so it was straight into the draw and out pops 33. Smile on face 😜. It’s a nice peg next to the bridge and with no one on 34, it could be an interesting day. Steve Shaw had a big weight off this peg two weeks ago fishing maggot over groundbait down both margins. So I set up two rigs for that today. Also a Shalla slim to fish the island in 18 inches with 6mm pellet. But that never got used there. But did get a run out somewhere else later. And a  .4 slim to fish 6mm pellet at five sections on the deck halfway along the bridge. At the all in I fed my lines and went out on the top five line and fed 6 pellets over the top and was straight into a carp. But it was foul hooked and came off. Same again next drop in, #&(@&**”’. Language Timothy!!. Frustrating but at least there were fish there. After the first hour I’d put 8 in the net and lost 4, but as usual, the bridge peg fish are small and I’d only put 24lb on my clicker. At least I was catching so I was happy. But the fish moved off for about 90 minutes and I only had about another 6 by half way. Eddie Wynne next to me was going for silvers and was slowly building a weight of them, but he was working hard for it. Fair play he kept at it all day. I tried the margins on and off but saw no indications of anything. In fact I never had anything apart from a couple of silvers there all day. So I stuck it out along the bridge and slowly started to catch regularly. About an hour from the end I saw a few fish coming up for my loose feed so the island rig was adjusted and I stared a bit of slapping and took about 10 fish shallow. The last twenty minutes I went back on the deck as they spooked on the surface and another 4 were put in the net. At the end I'd had around 40 carp and both me and Eddie thought I had 120lb and we were just about spot on as I had 121- 4 for first on the day. Second was Dave Wride with 99-1 from peg 22 and third was Ray Bazeley with 88-4 from peg 9. Eddie Wynne got his reward for working hard to take top silvers with 12-4 from peg 31. Gotta admit It was enjoyable. Lots of bites and busy most of the day.

1st Stu Barnett 121-4
2nd Dave Wride 99-1
3rdRay Bazeley 88-4

Silvers
Eddie Wynne 12-4
Dave Wride12-00

Landsend saturday open

Back for the first time in 6 months to probably my favourite venue. Always good here even when the fishing is a bit off because the breakfast is fandabidozy. After meeting up with a few guys ive not seen for ages it was draw time and out pops number 5, the narowest peg on the lake which makes life a bit easier. after a word from Jason radford who told me the fish had got a bit wise, and as the water level was so low i decided to set up a shallow rig for across to the island with a ling line. And boy was it shallow. i could see the bottom clearly at the start of the match. Not good!!.i set it so i could fish down the shelf but it was so snaggy i had to give up on that and go about a foot deep but that was well on the bottom. on and off i fished that line for about 3 hours as it was black with carp feeding. but Jason was right every time i put my rig in near them they just cruised off. Id feed and they`d come straight back but i never had a single indication from them. very frustrating. Only thing i did was foul hook one under the chin lifting the rig out. they never moved away from that line all day but i gave up with two hours to go and came in close. I had four carp in a short spell after a couple of hours when i was trying for skimmer with a 4mm over micros between two lilly beds. Mike Dicket had some good skimmers there last week but i never had a sniff of one. It wasn`t untill the last hour when I managed to get 8 carp out from infront of platform 4, that I sort of rescued my day. I ended up with 12, of which half were foul hooked, for 46-2 for nowhere in the match. not a good day over all. No silvers at all and as the silver pool was won with just over 6lb it would have been nice to get a few and go for that. results below.

!st Steve Seagar 121-11from peg 11. Mainley catching along the end bank and tight in the corner. And he didn`t whinge all day. Theres a first.

2nd Mike ducket 88-8. He caught switching from tigh acroos by the reeds and close in by platform 8 from peg. he also had the top silvers wieght with 7-12.

3rd was the ever consistant Tony Rixon  with 79-15 catching tigh over to the island and in his left margin from peg 19.

first in the silver by default was Mr Bean himself dave Wesson from peg 18 with two big skimmer and a few bits for 6-10

Harescombe thursday open

With it being ages since ive been here I was looking forward to fishing this place again. Nothing big in here but you can expect lots of bite...usually!!. nice breakfast, though i only had the small one as all my shirts are getting too tight lol. into the draw and out pops number 12. Not fished that far down before and the wind was coming from that end of the lake. That was ok as the top end was pretty blustery. Next to me was Phil Auger, i think thats how you spell it. Opposit in the corner was Ray Bazeley and i could see Paul Haines next to the landslide. The weather looked good and i was hoping for a few, but the lake didnt exactly fish its best. I started off on the meat line at 2+2 and after about 10 minutes i had a skimmer about 6 ounces, follwed, after a wait,by an F1. but then it went quiet. Phil started on the same line and was catching bits so i gues he was on maggot or caster. Ray was still quiet, thats a first lol. the wind dropped for the first time so i went across to the far side were id been pinging 4mm pellets and fished with banded 6mm. wasnt long before a had my first carp on but it was a fouler and it pulled out. I was getting loads of indications but it was snot fish messing around and when i lifted into the bites i was foul hooking fish. this was a problem for a couple of hours when i went over after swapping lines. It wa sa case of get a fish or two then nothing and mov lines.ray had started to catch short and paul had a good start but his peg died and was struggling. Phil was now fishing over long and was catching regularly on caster. lots of bits but decent fish in btween. I tried my margin but nothing was happening except all baits being dragged around by fish DNA. too small to get a maggot in thier mouths. so i mainly stuck across for the second half of the match shallow, but it was slow going. The meat line had died completely and the only place i could get a bite was against some hanging grass. Phil never stopped catching allsorts all day so i was convinced he`d won by the end as little was coming out elsewhwere.At the weight in Phil stuck a mixed bag of 65-4 on the scales. Stuart Graham on flyer 2 was second with 38lb. and i squeeded in for last in the money with 34-12. it was a bit of a frustrating day as conditions looked cock on, but thats fishing for you. Onto the next one. Might give Landsend a go Saturday.