Viaduct Silvers League Rd.3.

With a lot of over night rain things could all change as far as the fishing goes so I was more than hoping not to draw any of the shallower swims today and after being towards the back of the queue I was beginning to wonder after a few smiling face left the draw bag' With 46 fishing the match was to be spread over Cambell, Cary, & Lodge lake. I'd like to say my run of form of drawing well continued, (Not!) as I opened my ticket to find myself on peg 80 Cary which is along side the spit and yep its shallow! This peg has yet to produce so far in this silvers league ending up being in the bottom half of the section on the previous matches as well as having to contend with Matt Tomes on form peg 78 which won the previous match overall" I didn't think it was worth targeting the small fish today so went with a positive approach so decided on two pole lines at 14mts, One in-front of me and one off to my right as far as I could go, After pluming up I found I had two inches more depth in-front of me than I had in my swim yesterday' and only another 4inches difference off to my right" now I new why people were saying it was a hard area! I had already noticed Matt had around a foot deeper on his pole line and that can make all the difference at this time of the year. I felt if I had any chance of catching the lakes larger skimmers it wouldn't be until very late in the match so my only other option was to be a small ground-bait feeder fished out into the middle of the lake.

At the all in I feed 3 balls of ground-bait containing some chopped worms and casters on the 14mt line in-front of me and one ball on the right hand swim to start with packed with casters and dead red maggots, Starting on the feeder with two dead red maggot on the hook feeding a pinch of dead reds through the feeder on my second cast I was pouring a cuppa when the tip started pulling around" luckily I managed dump the flask quick enough and was soon playing a nice skimmer which turned out to be around 3lb". 20mins into the match it was a great start but it took another 30mins to get a smaller fish just over a 1lb but after this I couldn't buy a bite on anything so on the two hour mark I decided it was time to have a look on the pole lines and rest the feeder.

Starting in-front of me with double caster on the hook I wasn't to surprized not to get a bite despite trying other baits on the hook, It was the same case on the swim off to my right and the only fish I had a bite off was a rather large creature.." thankfully it only broke the hook-length so a new one was added. I re-fed the pole line with another ball of each then went back on the feeder and no sooner had it hit the deck I had a fish on" Another 1lb skimmer had me hoping they had turned up but it wasn't to be as again I couldn't get any indications, I think the problem was after hooking a fish and with the water being shallow it spooked any others away from the area?. I kept trying the pole lines but I was right in thinking I wouldn't get bites until late as my first 2lb skimmer on the pole came with 90mins to go. five minutes later after dragging my rig I hooked another good skimmer on the same line but it came off shipping back though I think it was foul hooked, I topped the swim up and switched to the right with double dead red on the hook, again a quick fish then nothing seemed to be the pattern and I had to rest the swim, Matt had began to catch some better skimmers as expected but wasn't running away with it and I thought I had chance to catch up in the last hour, another try on the feeder produced nothing so I sat on my pole lines for the end of the match adding 3 more skimmers one just before the whistle. I new Matt had more than me but I didn't expect to compete really never the less I was pleased to catch what I did on a hard day for most. At  the weigh-in I couldn't see anyone else in my section so had no idea what had been caught? My weight of 13lb odd was the second best weight behind matts 23lb on are bank only getting beat by a weight of 15lb of the end bank so a section 3rd was a good result considering. Traveling partner Don had a better day, drawing peg 125 on cambell, yes the peg jacko won the silvers off yest" lol, went on to win his section with 19lb odd having his second pick up of the weekend. Overall the match was won by In-form Gary O'Shea from peg 59 on lodge lake with 35lb catching on the long pole to take the win for the second match in a row, overall the weights were down slightly from last time but I'm sure it was down to the rain reducing the water temperature? back for Rd4 in two weeks and emerald silvers league next Saturday so roll on Friday".

Full results -

1st Gary O'Shea ( Preston Innovations Thatchers) peg 59 Lodge, 35lb 3oz.

2nd Roland Lucas (Bait-tech Viaduct) peg 96 Cary, 33lb 4oz.

3rd Ziggy (Un-Attached) peg 111 Cambell,  32lb 11oz.

4th Andy Power (Preston Innovations Thatchers). peg 94 Cary, 30lb 14oz.

5th Gabriel Skarba (Un-Attached) peg 68 lodge, 25lb 14oz. 

6th Vince Brown (Somerset Angling) peg 102 Cary, 25lb 4oz.