Viaduct teams of five rd 1

First of the eagerly awaited teams of five today and I was praying for the draw to be nice to me as all my previous visits have put me in the don't want to draw" areas, I was up early to be picked up by team mate Don Sutherland although to say I felt somewhat under the weather was an understatement as I had a cough, headache & Toothache all at the same time! Not to let the lads down & dosed up to eye balls it was of to the globe pub for the draw and a nice help yourself breky for a fiver, Team Mates today consisted of Myself, Don, Chris Hook, Steve Seager & Glyn Wickham in place of John Green For this match.

Don did the team draw today and came back with a big smile putting himself on Spring peg 4 which his section consisted of the match lake as well meaning the next name on the list would be me for a peg on Spring and where do I end up" peg 7 right in the corner! after a quick chat I found it was to be carp or bust as I would be cut off to fish the open water from the pegs either side and word was to fish as far down the edge as poss for the big boys".

Now this was my first big issue as I arrived at my peg to find an over hanging tree 2mts out from the bank which ment my fishing long down the edge was going to restricted to 4mts in amongst the branches" Great! Now I didn't fancy using my expensive pole so Don lent me his margin pole with 22 elastic", Two new rigs were made up on 0.17 direct to a 16 PR474 for various Baits, One to fish in between the branches in around 3ft of water the other rig to fish at 10mts through the branches in slightly deeper water with a very short line between the float and pole tip as I couldn't strike" & I also set a rig for a silvers line at 14mts as I had mixed my groundbait the night before and I thought I mite catch some skimmers on it late into the match, I fed 4 balls of groundbait packed with caster and a few dead reds on the 14mt line  And started the match not feeding anything and just fishing a big piece of punched bread around 6inches off the bottom in between the gaps of the branches  hoping to mug an early carp which might be lying there but after 15mins and know signs a change was made to fish just touching the bottom with 4 dead red maggot whilst feeding some over the top by hand with some casters.

Now an hr into the match and still know signs I fed the 10mt line with some broken 8mm cubes of meat & some casters and put a big 8mm cube of meat on the hook, After all I was after proper fish! Ten mins of tweaking the bait around and my first bite saw me just lift the pole a couple of inches and the elastic started to come from the end of the pole so I wasted no time in shipping back as fast as poss only to find out it wasent the munter I was looking for but a 3lb F1", at least it was a start but with no more indications I re-fed the line with some more broken meat and caster and reverted back to the 4mt line on a bunch of dead reds were I had been dripping some maggot & caster in by hand, 20mins and out of nowhere the float shot under and I pulled for dear life as much as I could to steer it out of the tree and within 10 seconds in was netted" no messing with this 22 elastic malarkey! Not a big fish but 7lb was a lot of silvers and plenty of time for a few more.

Resting the swim from the disturbance I switched back to the 10mt swim with meat on the hook whilst still feeding the short swim by hand but no more bites had me trying maggot and caster on the hook without success so twenty mins later I was back to the short line but I had no signs of fish I decided to try the 14mt groundbait line but with only two small roach on double caster after ten mins that was soon back up the bank and the rest of the match was to be spent hoping to catch some bigger carp, I even took a gamble to cup  in a full half pot of Dead Maggot on the 10mt line to try and force a fish to have a look but all a could muster was a missed bite which resulted in a perch as I lowerd the rig back down.( same fish?) and a foul hooked carp which was only small both coming on the line in the tree", The guy over on peg 8 was really stuggling and decided to chuck a feeder down to the back of the tree which was 6ft from my float" Marvelous' I did give him a LOOK" and the Gods were with me as next chuck he was in the Tree !, Then just my luck fishery manager Paul Greenwood walked passed him and told him where to fish along his inside bank only for him to end up catching 3 carp for 37lb on the pole at 13mts!

The lake had fished well on the noted pegs with Nicky ewers peg 5 Spring winning the match with some big carp on the straight lead and punched bread to the island for a total of 158lb, Don was next to him and ended 2nd in his section with 80lb , Mr consistent Andy Power won my section on opposite side of the island with 87lb  My total weight of 10lb 2oz was only enough to beat 5 others today but with lack of room it was always going to be big fish or bust and a few anglers in my section only had 1 fish a piece being 14lb plus" And Alan Oram over on cary had a 25lb 6oz carp on the pole!

Team wise we finished 9th on the day but not a disaster as we are only 5pts off 3rd place and there are 4 rds to go yet , next match two weeks time and my turn to be on Cambell, There were a couple of 80lb weights from there today but they were tightly shoaled so im hoping my draw lands me in the right area but that's fishing"

Results- Teams ,

1st Thacthers Vets 71pts

2nd Team Viaduct 66pts

3rd Somerset Angling 61pts

Individuals -

1st Nicky Ewers 158lb peg 5 

2nd James Knight 96-1 peg102

3rd Luke Sorokin 88-8 peg 66

4th Pete Bailey 88-5 peg 85

5th Andy Power 87-6 peg 16 

Silvers-

1st Nick Chedzoy 21-10

2nd Gary O'shea 18-0

3rd Des Shipp 17-8 

Shiplate Farm open Results- Hawthons & Westpool,

1st Andy France 42lb peg10 Westpool , maggot across feeding nothing" 

2nd Dave Coco 30lb peg 9 Hawthorn

Silvers

Julian Pinkett 5lb peg 1 Hawthorn