Viaduct Open. Saturday 30th October 2010

This was advertised as a silvers match, good job I rang to book in before buying the caster, as it reverted to a proper match where all fish count. Last weekend before the winter pellet ban at Viaduct and as it had been mild all week, I just took 6 & 8mm pellet and 8mm cubed meat.

Peg 111 was to be my home for the 6 hours, I set up a depth waggler, one at 2/3 depth, a straight lead and two pole rigs, one for hair rigged pellet at 14.5m and one for meat at 6m. I could have saved the effort!!

I started on the waggler at depth towards the aerator, I'd also fed some 6mm via a cup at 14.5m, it took a while to get a bite and I was a couple of fish behind Lewis Greenwood on 112 before I landed my first one. In fact the day was a bit of a groundhog day, hearing Lweis cast, strike and his clutch sing as another foul hooker sped off, there certainly seemed to be a ball of fish opposite the end of the spit.

Around 10 to 2 the phone rang and during the call (a bizarre question from Tony Rixon about fishing rights on the drain that flows into the Kenn at the crosswaters of the old Kenn & the Tickenham Boundary Rhine - one I couldn't answer) I hooked and landed my seventh fish. Then a blank two hours, I'd had one skimmer on the pole, no other bites. Pellet, meat, all seemingly a waste of time.

I managed to lose two wagglers as I snagged the ropes of the areator, I was surprised how the numbness in my palm (caused by the operation scar) affected my casting and feeding accuracy, which was pretty crap today.

I resorted to meat on the lead, unless I got tight to the aerator I couldn't get a bite - not sure if that was me being drawn to it at the start and feeding there initially - or that the fish were content to sit where they felt happy, I lean towards the latter.

Finishing just over halfway down th field was not the intended outcome, but the fish seemed to be content to stay towards the middle pegs of the lake, an enjoyable day anyway, 11 carp for 67.13 and a lone skimmer at 1.06 for a total of 69.03.

1) A Palmer 161.13 peg 128
2) K Masheder 129.12 peg 114
3) M Preston(? the Viaduct hand writing curse strikes again)120.14 peg 116
4) Roland 116.02 peg 124
5) D Roper 110.06 peg 126
6) L Greenwood 105.12 peg 112

Silvers

1) J Green 25.03 peg 125
2) G OShea 19.06 peg 115
3) N Bartlett 18.13 peg 118