Viaduct Fishery Silvers League Rd 1.

With the first round of the popular Viaduct silvers league today I was looking forward to the change of scenery and to fish against some who's who at this type of fishing along with the usual venue regulars, I stopped off for the normal hilltops breky on route with Gabriel before making are way to the fishery, With 50 odd anglers taking part the match was spread over Lodge, Cary & Cambell today and considering I haven't got around to fishing the venue since last winter I was relying on a bit of inside information, The first problem occurred when I was chatting to Bob Gullit before the draw and he mentioned trying 4mm hard pellet on a shorter line I was a bit baffled as I was lead to believe it was banned from Jan 1st and had removed any signs of pellet from my net bag the night before" Well you can guess were my first penny's went on the day! Back to the draw and I found myself on peg 98 Cary which I was told was a good area so that was music to my ears'.

I had already prepared my groundbait the night before so didn't have to faff around with that when I arrive at my peg leaving me plenty of time to sort my rigs, Firstly I made up a 0.02g rig on 0.15-0.10 and an 18 PR434 hook to fish at 4mt in 3ft of water with caster over loose fed caster, After pluming up carefully I decided to just to try the rig to see it was shotted correctly only to see the float shoot under and an angry carp attached" It didn't hang around and after bolting across the lake it managed to strip my whole rig!" Marvellous ...

With a new rig the same attached I moved on to setting up a light 3x10 Chanti to fish tight in to the bank on 0.11-0.09 and an 18 808 hook but I couldn't believe it when yet again I tried the rig out and hooked another carp close to the bank which again wasn't happy although this time I managed to save the rig I was beginning to think what the hell I was in for when I got around to putting some bait on the hook!!" My last plan of attack was my long pole lines at 12 & 14mts where the depth was about 4ft on both so one rig would cover it being a 0.5g Nick Gilbert skimmer float on 0.15-0.10 and a 18 808 hook, I planed to fish at 12mts at a 10 o'clock angle and the 14mt line 2 o'clock to keep plenty of distance between the two swims, For company I had old timer Charlie Barns to my right on peg 97 but didn't look in the best of health and after I raised my concern he said he was just having one of his off days and would be ok and a guy on peg 99 to my left called Andy who I hadn't met before.

At the all in I cupped 6 balls of groundbait laced with casters and a few pinkees on the 14mt line, half a pot of loose casters onto the 12mt swim and began to drip feed casters on the both short swims and some hard 4mm pellet to my left at 6mts and began on the 4mt swim with single caster on the hook, It took me 10mins to get a roach of 2oz but things were rather slow and after a couple of smaller fish in the next 20mins wasn't the best start but I wanted to leave my longer lines to settle so switched to the lighter rig down the edge again on single caster where I had been flicking a few in, It wasn't quick but I was adding a few roach to 4oz and was putting some fish in the net as Charlie was still fishless at this point, but things were soon to change as the Andy had gone on his longer line and had two nice size skimmers in two dob-ins for over 5lb so I was soon out on the 14mt line with double caster to start with. after 5mins I had a nice 3lb skimmer followed by one of the same size on the next cast only for it to take off out the lake shedding the hook! After 20mins and another 3lb fish on caster and pinkee I was a bit hesitant to top the swim up with another ball laced with casters but felt it was needed whilst I tried the 12mt line again with double caster to start with. I fully expected it to go under but after a switch around between baits I never had a sign and after another 20mins I felt the need to change how I fed this line.

I had noticed Andy had now had around 8 good skimmers all taken on the worm so decided to pulp up a good helping and add it to a ball of groundbait with some more casters and cup this onto the 12mt swim. I had another skimmer back on the 14mt line nearly right away but couldn't managed more than one bite before feeling the need to top the swim up a little, I did try the short swims again throughout the day and although I had the odd roach off each I had to target the bigger skimmers for the rest of the match, No matter what it seemed to be a case of having to re-feed a small amount of groundbait after any hooked fish be it skimmers or CARP" By the end of the match I had lost a few and scaled down to an 0.09 bottom after foul hooking one and getting it all the way to the bank only for the rig to fly out snapping the tip off the float in the process! I did have 3 good skimmers fly" off the hook through the day which also seemed to un-settle the swim for some time" The fish seemed a lot happier to stay Andys direction as he had fish on and off throughout the match up to the whistle, I had about 7 good skimmers and a couple of smaller samples to go with my roach but Charlie had struggled the same as me to put more than one fish together and when the scales arrived Charlie ended up with 8lb odd before my fish went 23lb, Andy had a good day finishing up with 39lb which was enough to take the section by default as further down the lake Anton page had managed 42lb which was enough to see him in the main frame resulting in me picking up £20 again by de-fault but managing to end up 3rd in the section point wise so not to bad a start in the league, Else where the talk was of drawing peg 110 on Cambell lake as a match here in the week saw Steve Kedge win with 66lb of tench on his top kit and last years league winner and fellow blogger Tony Rixon not only did well enough to draw it, He went on to win the match with 43lb consisting of mainly tench and small fish short on caster so well done to him. The weights were close again today although most people had carp problems at some stage with the water temperature still quite high it made for a good match to start the league and I look forward to the next round.      

                                                         Full Results -

1st Tony Rixon (Avon Angling/Mosella) peg 110 Cambell, 43lb 12oz. 

2nd Anton Page (Viaduct) peg 103 Cary, 42lb 11oz.

3rd Bob Gullick (GVMG) peg 94 Cary, 41lb 15oz.

4th Andy Botterill (Un-attached) peg 99 Cary, 39lb 4oz.

5th Dan Squires (Viaduct) peg 90 Cary, 34lb 3oz.

Cant go without mentioning a big thank you for all the views I've had and after just over 10mths I'm now up to 300,000 , Do enjoy doing the blog and am thankful to the feed back from anglers on the bank, Emerald Silvers series starting next sat and I like others cant wait, Managed a few hours with good friend Darren greenwood yesterday and despite getting carped out still had around 40lb and with Darren having around 50lb it looks like it wont disappoint"