Viaduct Silvers league Rd 4.

After The usual hilltops breakfast with Traveling Partner & Team mate Don Sutherland  we arrived in plenty of time for me to mix my ground-bait before the draw as I had all good intentions of doing it last night but after a few bevy's yesterday afternoon with friends I wasn't really in any fit state" The lakes to be used today were Cary, Lodge & Spring lake in place of Cambell this time around and I would be happy to draw the same area of spring as I had last time it was used, I did manage to get myself nearer the front of the draw queue today as after my last draw I felt I had as much chance of a good un" as anybody else?? Into the bucket and I find myself on my favourite number peg 69!', A peg I was more than happy with as its been the area producing the top weights on this lake in the previous rounds with the section being won of next peg 68 on the last match so I felt a lot more positive about the day ahead, Although Nick Chedzoy did comment to me on his way to his swim their was to be know moaning on my blog this week so will do my level best not too..??

For Company I had Local Ace Roland Lucas on peg 70 the other side of the rope who won both the carp & silvers pool in yesterdays open" but there was a bush between us so couldn't really see him which was probably a good thing! lol. My main line of attack would be the long pole and after a bit of pluming around I found a deeper part of the swim at 14 and a half meters directly in-front of me  which was a good 10inches deeper than it was of to my left or right or further out being approx. 4ft deep, This would be the area I would use as my positive swim so set up a 4x14 wire wonder on 0.13-0.09 an a 18 63-13 hook along with an identical rig to fish 10 & 2 o'clock in the slightly shallower water. My last pole rig was a 4x12 chanti on the same line and hook to fish short over loose fed casters. Last of all I assembled a 3AAA waggler which I planned to start the match on slightly further out into the lake. At the all-in I fed 4 balls of ground-bait on the deeper swim containing just casters, 2 balls were fed on the line off to my left with chopped worm and casters in and finally 1 ball of to my right towards the rope with dead red maggots added. Most people opted to start on the short lines but I stuck to my guns and started on the waggler with a small grain of corn on the hook feeding just a few grains with the catty to start with. it took me 20mins to get a bite which happened to be a carp which broke the hook-length'. Not wanting to waste much time I went on the short line were I had been flicking a few casters but after a roach straight away nothing followed but I felt I had missed the boat a little as others had seemed to have caught straight away including some bonus fish then things slowed up some what, I tried the waggler line again without success and before the first hour was up I found myself on the long pole, Starting on the shallower swim off to my left with double caster on the hook I had a couple of quick 3oz roach followed by a couple of 6oz skimmers before I had to wait a lot longer for a bite after 90mins of the match gone I had a skimmer around a 1lb on the same line but then nothing so decided to re-fed another ball with the same bait added and rest it. I kept trying the swim nearer the rope with single maggot on the hook and had a better 2lb fish but again I couldn't get a bite. I had left the more positive fed swim in the slightly deeper water as long as I could so started with single caster on the hook tipped with a floro pinkee, I missed a bite as soon as the rig settled but was soon playing another 2lb Skimmer, for some reason I just couldn't muster more than 1 fish from each swim before having to rest it but after about 3hours and a switch back to my left I had a run of 4 skimmers all over a 1lb before a couple of small roach saw me topping it up, with about 2hrs left I told Don who happened to draw directly behind me on Cary lake I was up to 9 skimmers and fully expected to catch more as the day went on but it didn't quite turn out as expected as apart from hooking 5 and landing 3 carp all I added was another 2lb skimmer regardless of where or what I tried The guy on peg 68 also had the same problem and although he had a run of 3 fish his peg had died, At the all out I felt I had just enough to see of peg 68 but had heard a lot of splashing coming from Roland's peg but had no idea what he or the others in my section below him had got on? When the scales arrived the chap on peg 68 ended up with 13lb odd before I put 16lb 6oz on the scales followed by Roland finishing up with 16lb 3oz" It turned out my weight be it very close was enough to take the section but a wins a win and I was pleased to finish with 1pt for the section along with the added bonus of £50, Overall the weight were down on the last match With Phil Cardwell Winning the match from what I think was peg 16 on spring? with 26lb odd followed buy a few close 20lb weights but I forgot the camera this morning being in daze" but Don Did manage to take photos of the weigh sheets after the match on his phone and will put them up when I receive them via email. Having not fished this league or venue much before my target is a top ten finish so today helped and look forward to the next round, Back to my league at Emerald next Saturday and hopefully the fish here have got used to the cooler water.

 

 

 

 

Full Results -

1st Phil Cardwell (Bait-tech Viaduct) peg 16 Spring, 26lb 8oz.

2nd Nigel Bartlett (Thatchers Tackle) peg 86 Cary, 24lb 5oz.

3rd Steve Kedge (Somerset Angling) peg 12 Spring, 23lb 2oz.

Jnt 4th Tony Rixon (Mosella) peg 60 Lodge Lake &

Gary Webber (Preston Innovations Thatchers) peg 99 Cary 21lb 5oz.

6th Mark Warne (Weston) Peg 3 Spring, 21lb 2oz.