Viaduct Fishery (Thursday Costcutter).

At Long last it was time for me to return to the bank to have a fish myself now my hand is out of plaster although still having to wear a strap for support and a few sessions of physio  in order it could make things a little awkward? For this reason I chose just to take my rods with me and hope to end up on a peg I could fish for carp rather than struggle to try & fish for silvers on the pole which I felt most would be doing with the silvers festival starting at the fishery soon as well as trying to qualify for a last minute place in the all-winners final in a few weeks.

With Gabo picking me up & the normal hilltops breakfast in order we arrived in plenty of time, Their were 24 booked in today so the match would be spread over Cambell (15peg) & Cary (9pegs), into the draw and I found myself on peg 123 which was the top end peg on the far bank of Cambell, Typical as this can be a good swim for Tench so would of been my first choice if I had of brought my pole' but I still hoped to catch a few carp? What I did notice when making my way to my peg that there was a lot of fish activity in the middle of the lake on the pegs below me 128, 127 ect but when I got to my swim there seemed to be a lack of it" but fish have fins as they say so you never know. It didn't take me long to set up as the two rods I had brought were already assembled, A bomb rod to search around my peg and a pellet waggler to fish up in the water if they appear to be shallower. Bait wise it was quite simple, Pellet, Pellet, and more pellet' along with a couple of tins of 8mm meat.

At the all in I decided just to have a chuck around with the bomb and various pellet on the hook without feeding anything, 15mins later and without any signs I began pinging in some 6mm & 8mm pellets in a few different areas to produce a response but it just wasn't happening, I had been feeding a few cubes of meat at around 7mts by hand and tried the bomb over the top with meat on the hook but nothing showed here but I felt it was still early for it to work, the worrying thing as I hadn't had so much as a liner on the bomb so gave the pellet waggler a try. Still nothing! & as I expected the pegs I mentioned were already netting fish as were the pegs opposite them and I had to start catching if I was ever going to catch up' I had been pinging a few pellets along the end bank in different areas and at 1pm I had my first fish over towards the empty pallet of around 4lb which was a bit of a blessing as I was beginning to think a blank was on the cards!'.

Buy 2 o'clock I had added 3 more to 8lb but it seemed to be a case of catching a fish then trying further along the bank to trigger a response, Not long after Gabo rang me to see how things were going and the second I picked up the phone the tip flew round' yep I was to late to react and the fish had time to bolt under the pallet snapping my main line in the process!" I soon was re-assembled and the second I cast back out I hooked another which was safely netted. I expected the last couple of hours to improve but if anything it got harder again as I felt the fish were shying further along the bank towards peg 119 with the breeze in that direction, John (The Gimp) Bradford was fishing for silvers off this peg so they were going to be safer there than me hooking them'. It was a case of casting to different areas for the rest of the day pinching the odd fish but the carp seemed to move away from the end bank as I only managed a late skimmer over by the pallet, I kept trying the short line at 7mts though the day and with 5mins remaining I hooked a right beast which lasted seconds before shedding the hook" I ended the day with 10 carp and the lone skimmer but new it wasn't going to be enough from what other had caught further down the lake. When the scales arrived the top weight on are lake was Dave White from end peg 110 with 127lb, My fish went 66lb odd and the pegs further down produced a few 70lb weights so I felt I hadn't done to bad to nearly catch up with them. Top weight on the day went to Dave Chidzoy from peg 98 on Cary with 140lb and the top silvers went to Somerset Angling's Steve kedge with 39lb from peg 129 Cambell which included 6 tench along with a nice net of roach. Not one of my best matches but being limited as to what I could fish the result was ok just a shame I didn't latch into a few earlier. Quite a busy schedule ahead starting with the silvers league here in a couple of weeks along with the silvers all-winners final to look forward too as well as booking into the Stafford Moor silver mania in November, Time to scale down the rigs then' but looking forward to it.