Viaduct Open, Wednesday 13th July 2011

I'd booked a days annual leave for today, as I'd agreed to fish Carps AC 'Kingston Seymour' series, which was subsequently cancelled. After two days interviewing applicants for a couple of vacancies at work, I decided to keep the holiday and fish Viaduct.

First into the tin and out came two swimcards stuck together - whichever one you put back its bound to be the wrong one, isn't it? I took one and opened it, revealing 125, I wasn't exactly overjoyed or cartwheeling around the room. I had drawn it a couple of weeks ago and managed 70lb ish, of which 24lb was skimmers. I hadn't brought anything to fish for silvers, I just had plenty of 8mm pellet, 6mm pellet and 8mm meat.

I set up two waggler rods, one to fish 8" deep as there were plenty of fish showing all over the lake on the surface and one to fish at half depth. I did set up a lead rod, although I didn't really expect to catch on it. And finally, three pole rigs, one shallow, a MW cookie on 0.17 straight through to a B960 16, a MW diamond to fish 8mm pellet at depth, same line & hook as the shallow rig and a MW float whose name eludes me (and he doesn't seem to sell it anymore)on 0.17 to 0.18 (0.17 Preston is actually 0.20) and a 16 Xedion TXR7 size 16 hook, this rig for meat.

I started at 14.5m shallow and had a couple of fish in the first 15 minutes, this didn't last and I had 2 more up to the 1 hour mark. Time to try the pellet waggler, this produced 2 fish fairly quickly, at around 15" deep and then it went quiet, just as the pole line did. I tried from 6" deep to 4' deep, to no avail, although there were plenty of blows. Into the third hour and I was now struggling for bites, so I put the straight lead over the waggler line and was rewarded with 4 fish in 6 chucks, 2 tench and 2 carp. Then as surely as the pole and waggler stopped producing bites, so did the lead.

From the halfway mark I'd been feeding meat at 5m, a look here produced nothing, so back on the 14.5m line with the full depth rig and first drop in with a 8mm banded pellet, the float settled and buried, carp number 9. A few lost foulers followed, so back on the shallow rig, but I couldn't get a bite on it. Back to the waggler for another fish, then back to the 14.5m line and another fish at depth.

So with 11 fish in the net and 1 hour 15 minutes to go, I knew I'd have to catch quickly and decent fish, to try and pick up some money. Back in on the 5m line and a 7lb carp first put in, then a 3lb+ tench, now there were bubbles from the 5m line and I caught 6 carp for nearly 60lb and 2 tench in that last 75 minutes. I thought I had 120lb of carp and 10lb of tench, and when the scales got to me, the 4 tench went 10.12 and the 17 carp 129.07, giving me 139.13, enough for second on the day. I suppose I can't be too disappointed at that, after my initial feeling that I'd struggle when I drew the peg. 17 fish for 129lb gives a fish average size of 7.08, so a few of those meat fish were doubles.

A pretty close match, with Kedgie missing out on a pick up by 3oz and some good silvers weights

1) Paul Homewood 188.13 peg 110
2) Chris Fox 139.13 peg 125
3) Howard Webb 125.05 peg 129
4) Steve Kedge 125.02 peg 115
5) Dave Roper 123.13 peg 116
6) Steve Jackson 106.04 peg 128

Silvers

1) John Green 64.12 peg 112
2) Alex ? 46.06 peg 123
3) Tim Pallant 42.08 peg 119
4) Howard Webb 34.02 peg 129
5) Steve Kedge 30.08 peg 115

Finally, something that made me smile on the way home. I went home via the Fosseway, as it is pretty deserted at 7pm on a Wednesday night, as I got into Shepton Mallet by the traffic lights, a 7 ton pick up/tipper towing an estate car switched lanes a couple of cars in front, catching my eye. It was one of those where you get a feeling somethings dodgy, fair play to the pick up, he got up some speed down the hill, into the dip by the cider factory and stated to climb the other side reasonably well. I then saw something, a piece of plastic? come out from under the estate car, for some reason the driver let the tow rope go slack.

This was half way up the hill, as the rope went tight again, there was an explosion of dust and shit at the front of the car, it slowed and the pick up accelerated up the hill with the complete front bumper moulding (a large one) attached, but no car. Luckily I managed to overtake them once the car had ground to a halt and the pick up driver realised what had happened and stopped - he got out smiling, it obviously wasn't his car......