Viaduct Fishery Silvers League (Round 1)

It only seems a short while ago I entered this league for the first time last year but yet again another 12mths seems to have flown by' I learnt a fair bit last year & was keen to have another bash, After Picking up my new little van yesterday I was keen to give it a spin, I arranged to meet traveling partner Don Sutherland at Hilltops for breky & who was already feeling the cold, Hardly surprising as 24hrs earlier he was on a beach in Dubai" It was a foggy cold start to the day even more so when we arrived. This is a popular league And even with a couple of No Shows" their were 49 fishing, This league has a high class field which makes it even more competitive so getting things right from the off is all important, I was near the front of the queue today and although peg 103 on Cary wouldn't of been one of my first choice I was keen to give it a go, I forgot my camera for starters then realised I didn't have my phone so at least it would be a quite day'. Unfortunately this lake had suffered a loss of the big skimmers earlier in the year but there is a good head of smaller skimmers roach and some big' perch to target.

With this in mind if it was going to be a case of catching quicker so I planned my main line of attack at 12mts with a swim straight in front of me and another off to my left at 10o'clock, Rig wise I set up two 4x12 wire wonders on 0.12-0.10, one with an 18 808 hook and the other with a size 16 to fish in around 4ft of water. Next up was a 4x10 chanti on 0.11-0.09 and an 18 PR412 hook to fish caster on the deck at 3mts and finally a 3x8 chanti on the same line/hook to fish on my top 3 down the edge in just over 2ft of water.

I had good company with Tony Rixon directly behind me on peg 71 Lodge Lake who was already beaming ear to ear at his draw" With Craig (Trigger) Edmunds, Down from him who was already giving him stick" Must say a big well done to Craig as He picked up the all winners" final at the fishery yesterday walking away with a cool £1000, that's fresh of the back of finishing runner up on the Hillview 4 day festival held last week". In my lake Gordon Cannings was next door in peg 102 and I didn't get the guys name but he was on the end peg 105 the other side of the tree.  Pleased to say everything was ready for the start and on the all-in I fed 5 balls of ground-bait at 12mts in-front and 2 balls laced with casters & a bit of chopped worm of to me left and loose fed a few casters down the edge under the tree and a few at 3mts. This is were I started the match with single caster on the hook and by feeding a few whilst I was cupping out bait it resulted in a few small roach from the off, It didn't last long though as bites were hard to come by, I tried down the edge with the shallower rig but again only had a couple more small roach, Back at 3mts and I hooked a 4oz skimmer which I stupidly tried swinging and dropped off" That killed it and after 40mins it was time to try the longer lines.

I started on the swim in-front of me with a 4mm expander on the hook, I was pleased to say as expected I had a run of skimmers on average the size of my hand with the odd 8oz fish thrown in, After a while the fish seemed to average a smaller stamp which was the clue for me to top it up and try the other long line. Starting with single dead red maggot (Which Tony kindly gave me' Bound to go under then!) And to start with it did as I had a few more skimmers but it wasn't as productive as the other line having to wait much longer for bites. Looking around the chap below me went off line a train but his swim seemed to be slowing and Gordon & the guys opposite were only catching odd fish, I re-fed the line with another ball of casters/worm and before going back to the other long line I decided to have another quick look under the tree down the edge. I'm glad I did as I had an 6oz perch soon followed by one pushing 2lb' bonus", With it being shallow the fish here spooked easily so I would only get a couple of bites then nothing. Back over the ground-bait line with expander and another run of fish of similar size and from what I could see I was the only one catching consistently slowly building a weight up, I did hook a carp which soon did my hook-length but rather than re-feed straight away I attached another and it resulted in a 1lb plus skimmer which can often happen when the carp have moved away, When things slowed I kept trying the other long line with various baits but it was nowhere near as good with just the odd fish. Another try down the edge saw me hook a decent fish straight away which turned out to be a hybrid over a 1lb' I did try just my top-kit between Gordon and myself tight to the bank but all I had here was a 3oz eel! By the halfway stage I though I may have around 12lb but was more concerned just trying to put fish in the net at regular intervals rather than try and guess what I had, Most of the fish were all of similar hand size skimmers but I did have the odd 10oz - 1lb fish, It was a case of keep rotating swims catching a few then resting the swim, I did pull out of another decent fish down the edge which I think was another decent perch but with such hard mouths it often can happen, Things were ticking over nicely until the last hour when things did start to slow on the long lines due to interest of more carp' I struggled to add a around 3lb or so in the last 45mins including another 1lb plus skimmer . I could see the guys opposite had struggled but didn't know how the lake had fished further up in my section? The guy below me on the end peg weighed first and put 15lb odd on the scales, I new I had more than that but was really pleased when I pulled my net out, A nice mixed bag which went 35lb and a lovely days again, Gordon put 9lb odd on the scales and my weight turned out to win the lake quite comfortably so the choices I made today went exactly to plan" My net consisted of over 25lb of smaller skimmers and about 10lb of bonus fish, As expected Tony went on to do the business which he's very good at to win the day with 46lb of skimmers taken on his favourite caster/maggot approach without a worm in sight so well done to him. Back at the results and it was a good result for me as I had enough to take 2nd spot picking up £100 along the way" A great start to the league with a Section/Lake win and looking forward to the next round in two weeks.

Full Results -

1st Tony Rixon (Mosella/Veals) peg 71 Lodge, 46lb 8oz.

2nd Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 103 Cary, 35lb 1oz.

3rd Steve Kedge (Somerset Angling) peg 130 Cambell, 32lb.

4th Dan Squires (Bait-Tech Viaduct) peg 55 Lodge, 29lb 5oz.

5th Nicky Ewers (Preston Innovations Thatchers) peg 125 Cambell, 29lb 3oz.

6th Paul Elms (Flip Flop) Peg 60 Lodge, 29lb 2oz.