Viaduct Charity Match. (Saturday) 

First to write about this weekend is the charity match in aid of click sergeant which myself & traveling partner Don Sutherland had both booked into and after the usual stop off for breakfast at hilltops we arrived at the fishery a bit disappointed at the attendance with only 12 booked in". Still at least I had done my bit and added nearly £50 towards the charity in sponsorship money to help out towards a good cause, The only lake to be used today was Cambell & with the lake being used in the silver fish only league I was keen to see how it would fish, Into the draw bag and I wasn't best pleased to end up on the end of the far bank peg 131, At this time of the year the carp tend to start shoaling up towards the other end of the lake so I made my mind up straight away to target the silver fish, the problem here was the lake is very shallow in this area around 2 and a half feet  and I felt that targeting the big skimmers on the long pole line would be to risky so my main lines today were to be the waggler at a distance I could feed easily with casters via a catty and a short line at 3mts where again I would plan to feed and fish casters in the hope of some tench? I set up a 3AAA waggler with a 0.10 hooklength and an 18 PR434 hook, A 4x10 Chanti to use on the short line 0n 0.13-0.09 and an 18 63-13 hook, A 3x18 Chanti to use on the same line up in the water on the same line/hook, and finally a 4x12 wire stem skimmer float for a line at 14mts in the hope of catching some skimmers later in the match over groundbait with maggot & casters.

At the all in I cupped 2 balls of groundbait with a small amount of chopped worms and casters added onto the 14mt line and began flicking casters on the short line. starting on the waggler towards the middle of the lake with caster on the hook I had a 5oz hybrid with-in seconds, followed buy a small skimmer and some roach in the next 40mins, I had began firing around half a dozen casters at regular intervals but had draw the attention of the small roach population' so began feeding bigger pouches less often to try and get some bigger fish to take interest, After 5mins I hooked and bumped off a better fish before things went quiet & felt I had to start catching faster if roach were going to be my target.

I had been feeding loose caster short for a while so switched to the 4x10 deck rig with double caster to have a look for some tench but it was obvious the roach were here in numbers so I was soon on the lighter shallow rig around 12inches deep with single caster on the hook, I started to catch really well mainly roach to 3oz and the odd small hybrid and from what I could see was doing ok silvers wise as there seemed to be a lot of elastic being stretched on the opposite bank, I did try the waggler again a couple of times though the day but despite trying a few different bait still got pestered with bits". I spent most of the match swapping between both the shallow and deck rig short and with 2hrs to go a 3lb tench on the deck rig got me all excited" thinking they had turned up in numbers but after a 2lb skimmer the only attention I had here after that were carp!

I never had a bite on the long pole until the last 45mins were I added two 2lb skimmers and lost a bigger flyer" which then killed it stone dead! so a few more roach short before we finished. I was first to weigh and had around 15lb of roach along with a few better fish for a total of 23lb, Steve Jackson won the silvers on the day on more fancied peg 125 in the deeper water with 35lb mainly tench at 3/4mts on caster and further up the was a 28lb of roach so I wasn't far from the frame and had I fished short from start to finish I'm sure I could of added bit to my weight but I do like to keep the options open and gave myself a good picture of what to expect should I draw this lake tomorrow?

Overall Giles Cochrane kept up his good run of form adding another win from peg 128 catching mainly on the bomb and meat for a total of 170lb, Don did manage to draw in the carp land" and ended the day with 103lb for 3rd on the day, Looking forward to the silvers league tomorrow and fingers crossed to have an improved draw"??.

Full result -

1st Giles Cochrane (Mosella) peg 128, 170lb.

2nd Roland Lucas (Bait-Tech Viaduct) peg 118, 156lb.

3rd Don Sutherland (Maver/Cadbury Angling) peg 119, 103lb.

Silvers - 1st Steve Jackson (Garbolino) peg 125, 35lb.