Viaduct Wednesday Open, 8th June 2011

25 lined up for the draw for this regular Wednesday open, two sections on Campbell and one on Cary - I was unconcerened which lake I drew, as lately I seem to draw the lake which comes second. Todays result bucked that trend, with both lakes being pretty even.

132 was my home for the day, a end (or corner)peg, the first time I've been on this peg, the usual comments "You'll win from there" "How do you draw those flyers" were bantered around, to those on any pegs with form. Having won money on the two times I've drawn 110 (the end peg on the opposite bank), I expected to catch in a similar fashion, i'e. towards the end bank.

I set up a lead rod - that stayed in sweet repose for 6 hours - so no further mention, a 2 swan dumpy waggler to fish shallow, a rig to fish meat to the end bank, which was a MW power on 0.17 to .015 with a 16 TXR7 hook. A shallow pellet rig which was simply a MW pea on 0.17 straight through to a B960 16, a MW diamond to fish pellet at full depth and a MW slim power on 0.11 to 0.12 power silk with a 18 808 for the devils spawn - should I get desperate!! ( The 0.12 power silk is actually thinner than the 0.11 power line).

I started on the shallow waggler , to no avail, the fish that were showing shallow, were all over by peg 136. I tried the deep pellet rig and had my first fish 35 minutes in, there were fish in the peg at 14m, but not so many that they were causing issues with fouling/false bites. I then tried the shallow pole rig and had one fish, it seemed to be slow going all round the lake, so back on the full depth pellet rig and a another fish - they were small fish though.

Time for a look up to the end bank, this produced 3 fish, which were around the 2lb mark, every 20 minutes or so I had a look towards 134 where I'd been feeding pellet, but there appeared to be no fish there. Still plenty showing between the far bank and 135, but Roger Andonio on 110 wasn't fishing to the end bank, if he was they may have pushed over toward me.

Halfway through, I had an idea that paste might sort out a bigger fish or two, so made some up, I did catch on it, bigger fish, but it was still slow going. At 17.15, with 3/4 of an hour to go, I saw a fish swirl in front of 134, at this point I had 13 fish, suffice to say 3/4 of an hour was two little, too late. The last 45 mins saw 8 fish come to the net, giving me a carp weight of 99.14 and my two skimmers edged the final tally to 101.09, enough for 5th on the day - if only those fish had moved across earlier.

1) Jason Radford 147.09 peg 119
2) Mash 139.02 peg 80
3) Matt Tomes 130.02 peg 76
4) Craig Edmunds 118.12 peg 123
5) Chris Fox 101.09 peg 132
6) Dean Malin 100.15 peg 127

Silvers

1) Craig Edmunds 47.14 peg 123
2) Steve Kedge 40.09 peg 78