Acorn pole only series round 4

My turn on A section today which is the small top lake known as the dog bone due to its shape , the peg to draw has been 4 as its won the section in the first 3 rounds and I couldn't see today being different, I pulled peg 1 which has been none to good so far, mat tomes was on peg four then asked if we were having our usual pound side bet, funny how he was chasing after people only when he had drawn, funny how we didn't have our "usual" pound at landsend last time when I beat him,
For company I had to sit and watch dave wride opposite, the lake isn't really wide enough to double bank it but dave and me decided to only fish 11 mtrs, any further and we would have been fishing down the same hole, so I set up a 4x12 rig for skimmers at 11 mtrs , a carp rig for the left hand margin into the corner and a 4x12 rig for against the end bank for mainly carp again, the carp are on the small side in this lake so both the carp rigs had 20 8313 hook on .12 , and the skimmer rig had the usual 20 6313 on .10.
At the start I cupped in some soaked micros on a couple of lines at 11 mtrs and some maggot and micros to my left into the corner and along the bank, the first hour went ok with skimmers and tiny carp falling to either soft pellet or single maggot over the micros, it was pretty much the same for dave opposite and mark broomsgrove next to him, who had fed groundbait instead of micros , mat on peg 4 had a bit of a slow start but as soon as he went across he began to catch plenty of smallish carp , so the peg seemed to be fishing to form, halfway through the wind increased and I stopped getting bites at 11 mtrs but dave and mark both kept catching , something to do with the trip I think as my float started going with the wind as opposed to against it as it was before the wind increased, the last couple of hours were spent fishing the left hand margins and end bank where I had a few better carp and some more skimmers, on double maggot ,  I enjoyed the last couple of hours a was getting a fair few bites and fishing to my left meant I didn't have to keep looking at mat netting small carp and kissing our "usual " quid goodbye, also mark was easily winning the silvers on this lake , so another blow out in this league was on the cards, by the end I wasn't to sure what I had as its hard to guess with small fish so I was pleasantly suprised to weigh 14lb of silvers and 25lb of carp for 39lb and third on the lake, as expected peg 4 won again that's now 4 times on the trot with mat having 60lb, 2nd in the section went to the ever consistent Tim ford on peg 7 with 50lb.
Overall today the match was won by joe McMahon on bridge peg 40 with over 100lb of carp taken shallow against the bridge , mike nicholls on peg 9 was second with again over 100lb but 2lb less
Than joe, mike will have the full results on his blog.
The league is being won by Pete Bartlett who has won all 4 sections so far, well done to him.

Weds open chiton trinity, woodland lake

Poor turnout today, only had 10 booked in and two of those cancelled last minute so down to 8, I may have to rethink my Wednesdays , as it ain't really worth fishing matches of this size unless they are on the doorstep, I may start staying at home and catching up on the DIY , ha ha yea right,
Shame there  were so few as its a well run fishery run by a lovely family who are constantly trying to improve the things.
I let misha draw for me under the strict instructions that I would like a peg at the top end of the lake as the wind had been blowing that way for a few days, she didn't disappoint and handed me peg 20 which is up in the corner, it's a peg that really is a pole only attack as with chris fox around the corner I was cut off to do anything else, Ron hardiman was to my right on 17 but I couldn't really see him(that was a bonus), this is one of the deepest pegs on the lake so I didn't set up a deep rig for the long pole, just a shallow rig for banded pellet, a meat rig for the right hand margin and a pellet rig to fish over to the left hand bank in about 2 foot of water.
At the start I fed the 2 edge swims and went straight out on the shallow rig , expecting a bite quickly but it never happened , in fact it took 15 minutes to get one , by which time Aaron britnell already had 2 fish in the net including  a 10 lb fish, the lake was flat at our end , and although I was getting a few fish I thought a bit of ripple would help the cause, but it took two hours for the ripple to start but it seemed to kill the shallow sport, but it was a cold breeze so it moved them off somewhere else, I did get a couple of fish on the shallow rig over the meat in the right hand margin ,and one on meat from the same swim, but then the small fish moved in there, reducing my cubes of meat into small marbles, I never had another proper bite there for the rest of the match, Ron on 17 was catching well each side in his margins on corn and meat but chris wasn't doing any better than me , Aaron was still catching , probably helped by the wall of pellet being potted into peg 12 by john(turkey) Thompson meaning the carp couldn't get past leading to a carp jam in Aaron's peg, I spent the rest of the match in my right hand swim catching odd fish right to the end of the match, I did make up another rig to
Fish shallow against the bank as there were a few fish eating the overshoot pellets off the bank and I
Did catch a few on that aswell , by the end I new I had over 100lb as I had 27 carp and one tench, but
With Ron also having 27 and Aaron having 24 but with. Few better fish, it was going to be close,
In the end Aaron's few better ones proved decisive as his 24 went 126.12 off peg 10, he had 14 shallow and 10 down the edge on double corn,
I was second with 123.15, with the lone tench which was a lucky fish as it swum into the bottom of the keep net and I thought it had transferred the hook, but pulling the net up , ther it was , still there
Tethered to the net , these usually come off but not today Ron , and it pushed mr hardiman into
3rd with 122.10 and we were only paying 2 , ha ha,
4th chris fox 96.13 who would also have had over 100lb if the last carp he hooked hadn't managed to
Undo the knot on his hook leaving him with a curly wily on the end, if you are struggling mate I
Don't mind spending a bit of time helping with you knots, I will even pop round to your care home
If Caroline (your carer) gives me the entry code to get in
5th john(fill it in) Thompson 64lb peg 12
6th Jason (Facebook) Radford 55.8 peg 6
Silvers went to Nigel Bartlett on 8 with 35.8 of mainly skimmers on soft pellet or murdered worms

Sunday,plantation horse shoe lake

20 booked in for today's match, which in hindsight is probably a couple to many, but having never even seen the lake never mind fished it , it would be a bit of a learning curve as far as the pegging went, i tried to ensure that no one had an Angler opposite or if they did there was an island in between them, it looked ok. To me. I had the last ticket in the bag and ended up with 14 which was up in the top left hand corner of the lake ,opposite a small island at 13 mtrs, the other side of my island was Shane caswell on peg 4 which looked really nice, talking to anglers during the week who have fished the lake recently , it seems to have been fishing hard ,so I went mainly for a maggot and micro attack , so I set up a 4x12 rig with a 20 8313 on .12 line to fish. At 1 o,clock angle to my right in 4 foot of water, the same. Rig would do down to my right in the margin towards the empty peg, I set up a same size rig for slightly up the island shelf and a hard pellet rig for right against the island, at the start I cupped in some mag and micro on the various line and fired some hard 4,s towards the island, starting on the 13 mtr 1 o,clock line with double maggot I had a carp first put in of about 2lb and at the end of the first hour I had 5 in the net, looking round everyone was getting a few fish so it seemed as though it was fishing ok, the swim got slower as expected and I found myself switching around the various parts of the swim , but the 13 mtr line was the most productive , I never had a bite on the island pellet line so I switched it to a maggot line against the island ,but I still only had 2 bites on that towards the end of the match, losing one in a bramble stem and landing a carp,  I found it strange that I couldn't get a bite against the island whereas Shane opposite was catching fish on hard pellet against his side of the island, the only difference in our swims was that he was fishing up against dead reeds but my side I only had brambles and mud, funny things fish, the margin to my right gave me a few fish, on maggot , I ended with about 20 carp, mainly small ones but I did manage  an 8 pounder about 10 minutes from the end which proved usefull,
1st on the day went to Craig Edmunds on peg 5 with 69 lb , catching all his fish on banded 8mm. Over. Catty fed 4,s on top of a shallow bar at 13 mtrs
2nd was me with 50.1 peg 14
3rd Shane caswell 44.4 on peg 4, that 8 lb fish was needed eh Shane
4th Clayton Hudson on 16 with 37.6
5th steve Seager on 7 with 35.3
6th mike west on 3 with 29.8
Silvers went to Paul faires with 8lb of skimmers on murdered worms on peg 17
To be fair it seems like a nice little venue that I can see us fishing a few times this year, we didn't get to many moans , apart from dave roper , but he loves a bit of a moan, and the gimp wasnt to impressed as he couldn't catch enough skimmers on his topkit, other than that most seemed to enjoy it, the islands could do with a bit of a trim but I,m sure goose fat vowels will get round to it as he has
Done a brilliant job on the main lake clearing the islands.
Still got a few spaces for trinity on Wednesday , so book early to avoid disappointment

Weds landsend open

Only 10 booked in today which is a bit disappointing as the venue has been fishing really well, the upshot was that we had plenty of room with everyone having at least an empty peg each side, I let mike duckett draw for and he handed me peg 19 which as most people know is probably the most consistent peg on the lake, I better say that before someone else does in a comment , I had mat tomes on 17 and roger crago on 21.
3 pellet rigs today, one for slapping ,one for up on the island shelf and a deck rig down the middle towards 20 all with a 18 b960 on.16. I set up a 4x12 rig for meat down my right hand margin with a14 xedion txr7 hook on .18 line,
At the start I began by cupping some hard 4,s at 13 mtrs to my right in the middle , some meat into the margin and fired some 4s to the island in a couple of spots, starting on the 13 mtr line I got bites straight away on banded 8 mm and at the end of the first hour I had several f1,s a skimmer and a small carp, it wasnt really happening so I switched to the shallow rig out by the island, I was getting plenty of bites on the corner of the island but it was f1,s which can be a tad annoying on banded 8,s , I switched to 6mm and caught several more but with mat now catching skimmers and f1,s the silvers were a no no. A switch to further down the island produced a few carp but these fish can be a bit cute at times as they have seen it all before and they soon melt away in that shallow water against the island , and as soon as the pole goes from over there heads the come back, sneaky buggers, I also started to get odd carp at 16 mtrs in peg 20 , just slapping the rig around without feeding, which is something I don't really do as I like to feed and be doing something to build the swim , mat had by the halfway stage come in at 5 mtrs on soft pellet and was catching silvers quite well but was being disrupted by rogue carp, he did get a nice IDE that he said was over 3 lb but I said it was 2lb odd so we had a fiver on the fact it didn't go over 3 lb, that was the easiest 5 pounds I have ever won as it went 2lb 9 oz thanks Matty, by swapping between the island swims and the open water in front of  20 I caught carp steadily enough but with Tim Clark on 23 catching on paste down his margins and mat
Also catching carp now it wasnt cut and dried , I kept going into the margins and that was productive for better size fish on double meat, at the end I thought I had 120lb ish but with both mat and Tim admitting to over 100lb , there seemed to have been plenty of fish caught all round  , but it turned
Out that the bigger fish I had down the edge gave me a bit of a buffer as I weighed 142.14 for
First .
2 nd was mat tomes with 110.10. But he did have the top silver weight on the day with 41.15
3rd Tim Clark on 23 with 100.3
4th Alan oram on 7 with 87.11
5 th. Tom thick on 11 , 47.12
6 th mike west on peg 5 with 36.10
Next Wednesday we are going to chiton trinity on woodland lake so if anyone fancy,s it ring me at the shop to book in on 01179517250

Acorn pole only league , round 3

My turn for d section today which runs from 23 to 38. As it was forecast to Beverly windy with the wind coming from the south , I fancied 27 or 36 so I wasn't to upset to pull out 27, not a eg with a lot of form recently but with the wind off my back I expected some action as I wasn't going to struggle getting sensible presentation , for company I had tim ford on 30 and the southwests latest body building champion Shaun kitteridge on 25, I set up several rigs , one for silvers to fish maggot over g bait at 8 mtrs but after a couple of short tries without a bite that won't be mentioned again, I expected to catch on pellet against the island on top of the shelf and down it but Thatnever really got going as I only had a small carp and a crucian on top of the shelf and a foul hooked 5 lb fish down the shelf, it was very hard , Shaun and mat tomes who were in my section to my right couldn't get a bite , whereas   Tim to my left was catching steadily from the off, and he was even managing to get the odd fish in the mouth, the wind was blowing his rig along the far bank and into the fish, he seemed to be. Catching on corn , which didn't help me as I had left mine back at the shop, I was feeding meat down to empty peg 28 and at about 5 mtrs to my right by an overflow pipe, I did feed a 13 mtr line to my right but apart from losing a fouler I never had another indication there, I don't think the far bank pellet lines produced probably due to the over use of the catty, tim on the other had was keeping it tight just kindering a bit of corn and micro(I think, his blog will say), I did have some meat with me and fed that either side and I was getting odd bites on it, I ended the match with about 17 or 18 small carp 1 tench that was over 4lb and the lonesome crucian which pulled the scales down to 37.5 which was a bit more than I expected, it was only good enough for 4th in the section so my league is now well and truly over, Tim won our section with 58 lb ish and the match was won by mike Owens on peg7 with 80 something pounds, full results will be on mike nicholls blog, top silvers. Weight on the day was john Bradford on peg 6 on the top lake, down there again in 2 weeks, I hope it keeps warming up.

Weds open, acorn fishery, dog bone lake

Ended up with 11 today which s probably one to many for this small lake as there are some narrow pegs where you need to give people a bit of room, fish wise the lake seems to fish in two halves , with the left hand end there seems to be more skimmers, whereas past the bridge carp seem to dominate, I pegged it the wrong way round with 1 at the far end coming back to 11 in front of the cars, I did write a longer blog but touched the wrong button and deleted it so I can't be assed to write it again ,  so I,m not going to mention mat tomes spent most of the match walking across the bridge to
Retrieve his rig from the far side bushes or the act Alan Healey next door only manage to catch a few after dean malin turned up and made a rig for him, and that he had to pay me and Jason Radford a quid after the match as  he had been battered all round like a chip shop sausage , and this is the first time Jason has weighed in in twelve months lol
1st on the day went to Craig Edmunds making it two wins on the trot with 56.14 which n clouded the top silver weight of  37.14. He caught all his fish on banded 6mm hard pellet over loose fed 4,s off peg 8
2nd was Tom thick on 7 with 27.4
Jnt 3rd was John Thompson and me with 17.2
5th andy gard 14.10 on peg 10
6th ian cornelius 11 lb peg 1

Sunday landsend open

This was the reserve date for the winter league , but as we never used it we ran an open instead, and was pleasantly suprised to end up with 36 fishing, so mike let us use the three lakes to put 12 on each,  
Plenty of room for all then, I thought I would wait and have the  last peg in the hat, I wish I hadn't really as I ended up with 46 up on the top lake(johns Walter), the top lake is ok but at the moment a draw at each end is needed, but 46 is in the middle , so very little chance of picking any coin up today, walking past the speci lake I stopped to talk to bob gullick who was on 40, he thought it may be a good idea to mention other anglers on this blog and how there days go, to which I informed him that they would have to do there own, but bob needs mentioning so I thought I would say something about his day and how it went , 1 perch, 1 f1 the end.
Doesn't really work does it bob
 Then again my day wasnt much better, I did manage 2 carp and an f1 on hard pellet over to the island , 2 perch down the edge on caster and a handful of skimmers on maggot over caster down the edge, it soon became apparent that the ends were fishing well on our lake with tim ford on 41/ Paul elmes on 55/ Martin McMahon on 58/ dave roper on 68 and fabio on 70 all catching carp and a few silvers, so not to much to right about really as nothing happened, I was in good moaning company as I had steve denmead on 45 ,and anyone who nows him will tell you that he has got a degree in moaning, as the match progressed it became obvious that there was only going to be one winner on our lake and that was dave roper who was catching on meat and corn towards the end of the island, but his catch rate was nothing to that of Craig trigger Edmunds on match lake 22 who was catching really well towards the end fishing pellet shallow towards the island and at the end he had 4 carp nets in the water, and  he didn't disappoint as he ran out a very clear winner with 226.3 which is a massive weight for this time of year ,just to be greedy he had the top silvers weight aswell with 17.8 of skimmers before the carp started feeding
2nd and well adrift but still with a good weight was dave roper with 97.12 on peg 68
3rd bela bakos on 17 with 70.12
4th Martin McMahon 65.4 peg 58
5th Paul elmes 65.7 peg 55
6th philip(flabio)Harding 60.5 peg 70

Landsend Wednesday open

Only 11 today so plenty of room on the match lake so everyone had an empty peg each side or a corner, so I didn't mind where I drew and wasn't upset to see peg 5 looking tame on the draw card, Ryan shipp had it at the weekend and had 25lb of silvers and a few carp so I was expecting a few more bites than I had at the weekend, the wind was going to make life difficult as it was forecast to be gusting over 30 mph , and it did, but at least the sun was out and by the end I think I may have started the tan going or was it wind burn, if we can believe the weather men by this time next week we may be seeing normal temps resumed, can't wait and neither can the wildlife,
Last time I drew this peg I won fishing pellet against the island, but we have had a lot of cold weather since then, so I couldn't see me doing the same, but I set up a pellet rig for the top of the shelf and one in the deep water between the islands, a rig for caster under the pallets either side and a caster rig for 11 mtrs, for company I had rod Wooten on peg 3 and the cheddar ac club professional andy France on peg 7, so good company . Opposite was Adrian Clark on 19( yes it was drawn this time), at the start I cupped in some casters each side and at 11 mtrs and some 4mm hard pellet on the long lines, starting at 11 mtrs on single caster I never had a bite , oh no, rod had a bite before me and had a 8lb carp which he safely netted after several attempts, soon after I had my first small roach, and I probably had an indication every put in on that line mainly from small roach but I did get 2 f1,s
5 skimmers ,1 ide. I had 2 bites up on the shelf one from a 3 1/2 lb carp and an f1, the deep water again gave me 2 bites another carp of the same size and a skimmer, the pallets each side seemed barren, I did hook a decent carp under number 6 pallet and played a it for a while only for it to come off. I think the island and deep water would have given me a few fish but it was impossible to hold the pole with the gale that was blowing, even the normally polite and mild mannered andy France was swearing more times today than I have ever heard him.
By the end I was admitting to 15lb but new I had more but it got mat tomes biting for a few seconds
Which is always good entertainment, there was a clear winner before the scales were used and that was Adrian Clark on 19 as he had 14 or 15 carp on corn or hard pellet fished at the bottom of the far
Side shelf, and after plonking 71.4  on the scales it was an easy win
2nd joe McMahon on 21 had 6 carp and a couple of silvers for 39.8
3rd Tom thick 38.8 peg 15
4th tony rixon 28.2 and my silvers went 21.2 so at least I got a bit of money back
5th Alan oram 21.5 peg 23
6th andy France 19.7 peg 7
Sunday there is an open match at landsend ,it's a 9.30 draw, and with light winds forecast at least pole fishing will be easier, book in with me at the shop on 01179517250 or with mr duckett on
07977545882

Acorn. Lge Sunday , landsend open Monday

Well here we go two blogs in one and neither are going to take to long, starting on Sunday it was the second of the faieres/fox pole only series, I was hoping for a good draw so I was a tad disappointed to pull out 19, dave wride had it last match and came second in the section off it with 16lb ish I think so there may be a few fish about, but with dave wride on 12 and tim ford. One side of the bridge and mat tomes my side of it a decent section placing was looking iffy, at least the wind was off our backs and with the sun out it was quite pleasant if we did have to break ice to fish, what's all that about this time of year .
To cut a long story short it was a real struggle , it took me an hour and a half to catch my first fish which was a half ounce roach and by the end of the 6 hours I had 5 small carp 3 small skimmers a second roach of about 3 oz and a micro perch for a grand total of 11.11 for 4th in section, dave wride won the section off  12 with 22lb and he was even smiling by the end tim ford was second on 22 with 18 lb and mat was third with 13lb, I don't the full result as I left a bit sharpish ,already looking forward to landsend on Monday as you are always sure of a lot of bites there !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After the normal good breakfast at shipham(lillypool cafe) it was off to the fishery , it was a good turnout with 27 booked in, now for my gripe  and many other match organisers, why do people book in and not turn up I had a certain Gabriel book in and he failed to show , especially as I left a peg in for him ,and Sod's law , it was peg 19 left leaving 17 and and 21 with loads of room, he had my mobile number so a txt would have done , not hard is , even letting me know on the morning isn't a problem.
I let rig Edmunds draw for me and he gave me peg 27 which cheered him up no end as its been rubbish for months and today wasnt going to be any different , I had 5 bites all day , I landed one good f1, a decent perch, lost a perch and two fouled carp, conditions didn't help as it was probably the windiest peg on the lake and the wind was pushing the rigs through with the wind, giving zero presentation, the 4 pegs at the top. End of the speci lake were the place to be with andy hembrow on
32 catching steadily as was Adrian Clark on 31, during one of my two walks I stood behind Shaun
Townsend on 21 and he was catching really well on soft pellet over micros fishing 14 mtrs back towards 20, I didn't bothe real king up to the top lake as I was depressed enough, I never expected
To win off the peg but I thought I would get a bit of sport, the conditions probably were the main factor in not catching I think , as it was impossible to stop or slow the progress of the rigs anywhere
In the swim,
A clear winner today was Shaun Townsend on 21 with 149.13
2nd andy hembrow on 32 with 100.10
3rd bob gullick with 79.7 on peg 58
4th Adrian Clark 64.11 peg 31
5th Ryan shipp 56.9 peg 5
6th Vincent shipp 48.3 peg 68
Silvers
Phil (fabio) Harding 30.6 of skimmers on peg 33 fishing soft pellet over micros at 11 and 13 metres