Welcome to my fishing blog… September 2022

September 3rd – Alcove Club Match, Acorn Fisheries, Clevedon

This match was hastily rearranged because the Clamp was unfishable due to a covering of biofilm on the surface. Now I must admit, I hate commercials but I hate Acorn even more. Why? Well, it’s a featureless hole in the ground, stuffed with small carp. Matches are held at this venue about twice a week and I just can’t for the life of me understand why anglers are happy to go there week in and week out… everyone to their own I suppose.  

There were 14 of us at this match including a few guests to help make up the numbers. Anyway, we met up at the Bridge Inn, where some had breakfast. I just had a cup of tea as I rarely go for a cooked breakfast these days. I’m far too heavy anyway and need to lose weight not gain any. At the draw I pulled out peg 10, which didn’t mean anything to me as this was only the second time I had fished at Acorn. The first time was about a year after it first opened. It hadn’t changed much. I got to my peg and had the edge of an island to fish to at 13 metres.

I set up a rig for this, fishing about 3 inches over depth and pushing the float up the slope of the far bank. I also set up a rig for fishing down the middle and one for both inside edges later on. At the all-in I cupped out some pellets to the 13-metre line and another small cup of hard pellets, expanders and micros down the middle. I had Tony Welsby for company on peg 11 to my left-hand side. I could see that as the breeze was picking up, his swim looked relatively sheltered, whereas mine was beginning to get battered by the wind. This venue is so exposed to the wind as there are no windbreaks on the west side. It would be much better if they planted a few trees to filter the wind. Perhaps they will one day.

I started on the shorter line fishing down the middle. It was fizzing and fish were obviously feeding there. As I lowered in my expander pellet, all on my usual Chianti float and Guru line/hook rig set up, I had a skimmer of about a pound right away. Next put-in I had a small tench and a few more skimmers before it went quiet. I fed some more pellets and then tried over the far side, foul hooking a carp straight away. Another put-in and a carp was on. It was about 3 pounds. After that I kept foul hooking them so I adjusted the depth of my rig until I was hooking them cleanly. However, the wind was getting stronger now and it was getting really difficult to present the bait properly.

I persevered until I just got fed up trying to hold the pole out in the wind and missing so many bites. I went back on the shorter line and worked it quite well, catching small carp, skimmers and tench fairly regularly until again it died. It was over halfway through the match now and I reckoned I had over 20lb. Tony was well ahead catching carp steadily from the far side in a nice little calm bit of water. I decided to feed both my right and left-hand margins with groundbait and pellets, before going back on the short line for a couple more fish. With just 90 minutes to go, it was time to attack the margins.

I dropped the rig into the left-hand margin and had a roach on expander pellet, so I tried the right-hand margin. Fins and tails were everywhere and as expected I foul-hooked a couple before they settled down. I had to reduce the amount of feed as too many fish were coming in all at the same time. Finally, I got it sorted and started picking up small carp regularly, and losing the odd one too. I felt like I was just getting the upper hand when the all-out was called and so I should have gone down the edges sooner me thinks.

At the weigh-in I had 47lb 3oz, which was never going to be enough to frame on this type of venue. My legion teammate, Jason Pitman finished top with a cracking 99lb 3oz. Tony on my left finished with 81lb 6oz for 4th place. It will undoubtedly be a long time before I come back to Acorn Fisheries, if ever.

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January 2023

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June 2022

July 2022

August 2022

September 2022

   3rd – Acorn Fisheries – Clevedon

   11th – RBL Match – River Avon – Staverton

   18th – Whitehouse Farm – Earhcott Green

   25th – RBL Match – B&T Canal – Taunton

October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

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