Shiplate and acorn

Sunday and it was the silvers league penultimate round, run by ron hardiman,, todaynandnit was the main lake at shiplate, plenty of silvers, but with a minus 3 frost over night it may be difficult, haven't been here for a couple of momths as on Thursdays i have been going to the excellent plantations lake for silvers matches and huntstrete for the same, so i was looking forward to today as this lale also has a huge head of quality silvers in it, all these good silvers venues seem to do best when the lakes also have a good head of carp, skimmers and roach like eating carp pooh by the seems of things, carp do have a short digestive system so obviously they pass plenty of nutrients out for the traditional silvers can eat, trying to create a silvers only lale never seems to work, a fact that gets born out with regular monotony with fisheries paying the price for attempting it. Anyway today i was off to peg 15 for the day, good carp peg, but the majority of the bigger skimmers seem to have been further up the lake recently, i had ryan(the float) jordan to my right and opposite on peg one was peter pan himself , leon Hubbard. Three rigs today, one with a twenty hook on to fish maggot over groundbait at topset and two, and at 11 mtrs at 11 o,clock angle and another with an 18 for 1 o,clock angle, also a margin rig for the left as on some days it can be good for tench, but i never fished it as every time i put a bit of bait in all i had was carp tail patterns,

the match started and i fed the relevant baits in all areas, a slow start was an understatement I had my first bite after 1 hour and ten minutes, carp on , not a big one , about 6lb, so safely netted, by now leon opposite was catching small skimmers , but our bank was extremely slow judging by the bankside banter. But as the match progressed my swim got better, mainly smallish skimmers from 4oz to 12 oz, the middle three hours were the best for me, with the 90 minutes at either end being a struggle, although i did get three better ones towards the end, also carp were a problem for me, as i hooked 16, it dont help the cause thats fot sure, i thought i had about 25lb and wasnt to far out as i had 26.15,

i felt loen had over 30lb so he looked like todays winner, but after joe mcmahon put 33 lb on the scales it may be close, but leon just edged it with 34lb so well done.

Leon is well out in front at the mo, one round to go and he could easily still win the league even though he isnt fishing the last round, with no droppers and no reserves allowed he will get maximun penalty points but the chasing pack still needs to do well to catch up.

Monday and down to acorn, struggling to get monday matches off the ground here, only 7 of us today, so i pegged everyone with the wind off our backs,peg 3 for me. nothing to report by me on this one, started off feeding pellets with a catty, the ducks moved in and never left, i like them in the summer but not when its hard, ive had a proper shoeing either side with mat tomes on my left on getting it right just kindering a few pellets across, catching f1,s, some carasio and small carp, anything which looks like a carp, is a carp in my matches, paul faiers on peg one was silvers bashimg and doing well, me i couldnt get a bite hardly, even the short maggot line which paul was cathing on( or should i say short pinkie line), and in the last half of the match mat was catching well on, i felt as though i was watching 👀 a tennis match, i had a stiff neck by the end, 😂😂 well i csme last with 26lb, well done to mat who won with 68lb which included 40lb of silvers, and paul on my right was second with 44lb and that included 40.03 of silvers, think i may have got it totally wrong today😕😕😆😆, onwards and upwards as they say, it was a hard day for some reason, with the decent carp being very noticeable by there adsence, it fished better the next day thats for sure.pics and weigh sheet below