Viaduct Fishery (Thursday Cost-cutter)

Well the day couldn't come soon enough, finally with my cast removed a couple of days ago and just two fingers strapped up for support it was time to chance my hand and seeing I'm still signed off work take a trip to Viaduct for the Thursday penny pincher match which is not about the money, more of a chance to fish under match conditions without breaking the bank'. Traveling on my own today I still managed to get my breakfast in before arriving at the fishery.

There was a good turn out with 41 fishing today and to be honest it was a case of who's who as there were some very good anglers taking part, The match was to be spread over Cambell & Cary lakes and I was really hoping for a swim on Cary were I could fish the bomb and pellet as I didn't know how my hand would hold up if I had to fish the pole? I had a good chat with Giles's Cochrane before the match as he has a excellent record at the venue including winning the last two matches on how he was fishing the bomb because the results speak for themselves', After Gleaming a bit of information it was time for the draw, Giles's hand didn't let him down' ending up on peg 87 which is a good area for his approach and just happened to be next to where he won Sundays league match! (My money's on him then") My turn and I too was managed to draw Scary Cary, Except it wasn't the area I wanted being peg 74, the end peg as you walk in which just so happened to be more of a pole peg as I was limited how far I could fish the bomb. I found out the peg hadn't produced much in the matches of late but undeterred I was looking forward to the day. I planned to keep it simple, The bomb and pellet to fish around the peg, A rig to fish at 16mts off the end of the tree in the open water which happened to be the deepest part of my peg at around 3ft, being a 0.3g maver invincible on 0.16-0.14 and an 16 wide gape pellet hook.

 

And finally a 0.2g maver invincible on 0.17-0.15 with the same size hook to fish down my inside at 13mts to start with into the channel between the bank and tree in 2ft of water which looked a bit daunting judging the size of some of the fish this lake holds..!

 (Danger??)

 

It was the same depth towards the empty pallet on my left so would feed this by hand and look for signs of fish later on in the match,

 

It was soon time to get going so I fed a minimal amount of 6 & 8mm pellet's onto the 16mt swim and down the inside 13mt swim and started on the bomb and 8mm pellet working from left to right feeding just a few 8mm's. It didn't take to long for the guy opposite to have a carp on the bomb but on the 15min mark I had a good fight with a 10lb carp landing it so a good start, by searching around the peg I managed 2 more in the first hour, The problem I the guy opposite started feeding with a catty between the two pallets opposite me which I thought was a bit far from where he was as I thought you were only meant to fish as far as the next pallet??? The trouble was it was a lot more than I was feeding and the I felt they would venture over to the noise in what was a safe area to be honest!. It wasn't worth making a fuss so I struck at it topping up my pole lines every 30mins, By the second hour I had added a near 20lb' fish as well as a smaller 5lb fish but was struggling to get indications so it was time to try the other lines.

 

I gave the 16mt line to start with an 8mm banded pellet, I missed 3 bites before I had a fish of 7lb but after that I had to wait for bites and then I would miss them" I decided to switch to a hair rigged hook-length to try to improve things but only added a couple of 2lb skimmers, Time to try the inside 13mt line again on 8mm pellet. It didn't take long for an indication as I was lifting and dropping the float except it tore off with the result being a big scale on the hook" 10mins later and I hooked another big fish which put me in a snag further down the bank totally trashing the rig' B*****K'S!, just as I thought things couldn't get worse I chucked the bomb out whilst attaching a new pole rig only for the tip to fly around but I had forgot to loosen the clutch back off after the big fish and it snapped my hook-length! I re-fed the pole lines & tried the bomb again without success so tried the 16mt line again.

 

Straight away I had another 10lb fish which did its best to try and get under the branches followed by 2 more skimmer's, back down the edge and again I had a 7lb fish and a couple of skimmer's so I gave the bomb another try with an hour to go, I hooked a right lump 5mins later which swam straight at me then did a U-turn snapping my main 6lb main line'?? luckily I had two bomb rods assembled so it wasn't to much of a issue but that was the last bite I had on it, the last 45mins saw me add a fish from the 16mt line on 6mm pellet and a couple more from down the edge with a couple more skimmer's before the a out.

 

Word on the bank was Giles had sacked up again on his usual bomb and pellet approach and a couple of anglers were admitting to over 150lb, I was one of the last to weigh, finishing the day with 11 carp for 100lb and 11lb of silvers for a day of all the 1's finishing up with 111lb' Back at the results and Giles had indeed done the business again topping the field with 218lb ahead of Dave Romaine a couple of pegs away on 85 with 209lb so well done to them, Top Silvers went to Ian (Piggy) Parson's with 44lb of Tench from corner peg 123 on Cambell.  It turned out my weight was enough for 6th on the day but picking up 5th in the pool's by default so the £15 was a bonus' Apart from a couple of disasters I felt I had a good match, I didn't feel the peg would ever produce enough to win the match but I approached it with an open mind and learnt a few things along the way, One thing that did stand out was the ratio of bites I hit once I had changed to hair rigging pellets on the pole which I'm sure cost me a couple more fish which doesn't sound much but when there this big the weight soon builds up!

 One Of My Munter's.

 

I'm sure the fish on the bomb line had moved over with the wind to were the guy was feeding between the pallets but as far as I'm concerned it wasn't water for either of us to fish so I wasn't going to approach it. On the reserve list for Saturdays open here on Lodge Lake but failing that it looks like Acorn fishery for me.

Full Results -

1st Giles Cochrane (Mosella) peg 87 Cary, 218lb 8oz.

2nd Dave Romaine (Bait-Tech Viaduct) peg 85 Cary, 209lb 4oz.

3rd Craig Tucker (Royal Marine's) peg 80 Cary, 184lb.

4th Pemb Wrighting (Guru/Bag um' Baits) peg 102 Cary, 176lb 9oz.

5th Howard Woodward (Unknown) peg 86 Cary, 122lb 14oz

6th Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 74 Cary, 111lb 14oz.

Silvers -

1st Ian Parsons (Sensas/ M5 Angling) peg 123 Cambell, 44lb 4oz.

 

 

 

Just to finish blog I made a return trip to the Taunton and Bridgewater canal on Wednesday with good friend Darren (Bigbird) Greenwood, Although I wasn't fishing as my hand was still a bit sore but I went along for the trip. We Decided it was best to go early as its always been said the Tench feed best at the crack of dawn? So He chose a section on the Boat & Anchor stretch Which can be seen off the M5 motorway at Bridgwater.

 

After a bit of a wander up and down to select a swim without to many lily pads to cause problems' He was set up and ready to go not long after 7am in what looked like a very fishy peg".

 

Just feeding two swims across and one down the track with a mix of worm, casters and some ground-bait we expected the action to be pretty instant but it wasn't until the sun stuck its head out and things warmed up the Tench turned up (That knocks the theory on the head then'), Here's where the fun began' in the space of 30mins Birdy hooked two from across in-front of the lily pads and one down the track all on worm but it was a case of 3-0 to the Tench much to his discussed!" There were far more lily pads hidden than we could see and they certainly new were they were.."

Small fish were certainly being a nuisance so a new heavier 0.4g rig was assembled with a 0.13 hooklengh and an 16 808 hook. After dump potting some worm casters across before hand he went back down the track and soon hooked number four,

 

 

At last' on the slightly stronger elastic it eventually ended up in the net"

it was a nice fish between 5-6lb although he still didn't look to happy at the score when I took his mug shot'

 

We thought things were going get better but unfortunately it wasn't the case, The sun really began to hot up which seemed to wake the entire population of Rudd up but put the Tench off the feed, He managed to hook two more though-out the day but with the amount of hidden weed and lily roots they made their bid for freedom. We tried raking the peg as nothing was happening but it was to late in the day for it to work, perhaps we should of done it before we started but the swim just looked to fishy to start with, Lesson learnt really as I'm sure prepping a swim when arriving would produce a few more Tench so we will keep this in mind for are next visit.