Viaduct Fishery (Thursday Costcutter).

I had the day booked off to take care of are Dog who's been poorly off late but after the wife would be around most off the day I took the chance to get out on the bank, I managed my breakfast on route & bumped into old friend Derek Coles who was off for a pleasure session on Durleigh Res', He was telling me how well the Bristol Avon had been fishing in the last year with 20lb nets of roach common place & the river throwing up 100lb plus weights of big bream when conditions allow so good signs for the future, Arriving at the fishery it turned out their were 24 booked-in so the match would be spread over Cambell & Lodge lakes. I fancied one off the corner pegs on lodge as they can produce some good weights when it gets cold & with a hard frost on the ground when I arrived I did fancy one of the corners to throw up a weight?

Into the draw & I gave the tin a bloody good shake before I picked one out to try and stem my poor run of un-wanted areas'. Peg 128 Cambell, Not the draw I had hoped for but never the less I still fancied it for a few being the first peg above the spit on the far bank which is opposite the current hot peg" on this lake peg 114.

Still trying to qualify for the all-winners final later in the year Carp would be my main target today so first out was a rod to fish the straight lead then a loaded waggler to fish at various depths through the water. I did set up one pole rig being a 4x12 Chanti on 0.13-0.11 & an 18 PR434 hook to fish two lines at 16mts as the forecast predicted little wind today which makes a change!.

 

 

I started the day by feeding a good helping of corn at 16mts to my right & feed just a few 6mm cubes of meat at the same distance to the left. I started on the bomb' with punched meat on the hook searching around the peg if need be to try & locate some fish, It didn't really go to plan as although their seemed to be fish present as I was getting a few liners I didn't have a fish until the end off the first hour & it was small at around 3lb, Adrian Jefferies on peg 114 hadn't done much better as at this stage he also only had one fish, I decided to switch to the wagg' starting with corn on the hook with the bait set just tripping the deck, I hooked a fish after a couple of min's which turned out to be in the fin' & shed the hook at the net" I had another in the tail" 10mins later which I did manage to steer in this time so things were telling me the fish weren't keen to be on the deck, I switched to fishing punched meat again at half depth to start with & lost a fish after 20mins of casting around but things just didn't seem to be happening.

Adrian had managed a couple more on the bomb & bread which I also tried  without a sniff before he to switched to fishing shallow on the wagg, After nearly 2hrs gone I decided to try the pole lines I had been topping up at regular intervals, Starting with a small cube of meat on the left hand swim I expected a bite off of something but nothing showed, A switch to the other line with corn on the hook I was just about to give up after 10mins when I had a bite which turned out to be a near 2lb skimmer, That was it for the time being though as again no more bites. I had noticed a fish swirl in the middle of the lake opposite the end of the spit so had ago on the bomb with double corn on the hook, It worked' as I had one straight away before I saw signs of fish moving further across the lake out of my zone'. Back on the wagg shallow I hooked one on the bread which again came off but then I couldn't get any signs no matter what I fished on the hook. By now over half the match had gone & Adrian had started to catch a few on the shallow wagg but for some reason the carp weren't playing ball my side of the lake' (Nothing new there then!") I managed another 3lb fish shallow on the corn out of the blue but it just wasn't happening so decided to try the pole lines again. Starting on the corn line I hooked a decent carp which didn't stay on to long" so don't know if it was foul hooked? but I just could not get a bite over the meat line which was surprizing as I expected this to produce at least a few skimmers, Apart from another carp on the bomb & corn in the last 30mins & a smaller skimmer off the pole/corn line that was the best my match had got' Adrian had picked off the odd fish so looked favourite to win the lake but yet again they just seem to be happy to sit that side of the lake at the moment for some bizarre reason? My two skimmers & four carp gave me a total of just over 20lb which happened to be the best weight along the whole of my bank but as I expected Adrian won the lake with 67lb so well done to him, As I predicted Lodge was the place to be as Mark Poppleton won the day from the famous Monk Peg' 66 with 120lb taken along the bank on corn & the next two placed anglers were also in corner pegs on this lake so I did well to know what would happen" Lol. Top silvers on the day went to Alan Oram also on Lodge lake peg 69 catching either on caster or meat over casters, Well back here for the winter league on Sunday & my turn to fish Spring Lake so lets see what this throws up?.

Full Results -

1st Mark Poppleton (Wiltshire) peg 66 Lodge, 120lb 6oz.

2nd Lee Werrit (Middy/Bait Tech) peg 56 Lodge, 89lb 8oz.

3rd Emma (Un-attached) peg 53 Lodge, 70lb 11oz.

4th Adrian Jeffries (Avon Angling) peg 114 Cambell, 67lb 1oz.

5th Alan Oram (Premier Angling) peg 69 Lodge, 32lb 2oz.

6th Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 128 Cambell, 20lb 7oz.

Silvers - Alan Oram 18lb 13oz.