The Holdall of Doom... Viaduct Open Sat 3rd Sept 2011

With the County Champs final taking place on Campbell, there was 17 of us in the regular Saturday open, all on Cary. All the omens were good, nice breakfast, decent drive down (hardly any dawdling old gits) and second in the draw queue. I drew 76, I certainly wasn't disappointed, as Anton Page had managed 190lb+ from this area last weekend.

I set up a waggler and a lead rod, tops kits for a shallow rig, a paste rig and a full depth rig with a hair rigged band. Also a rig that would suffice for worm/corn etc, this would cover the margin and open water, as there wasn't more than a couple of inches of difference.

I started on the waggler and stuck with it for the best part of an hour, to no avail, not even a liner. The story was pretty much the same on the shallow rig at 15m, which I'd been feeding, the depth rig was the same, as was the paste line. The margin also seemed devoid of fish.

3½ hours in and I'm still fishless, when the waggler dips and its 'fish on' - disappointing it turns out to be an 8oz skimmer. I decide to up the feed to see if this will attract some fish into the peg, as by now I'm fed up of seeing yellow elastic streaming from Nigel's(surname unknown, green Sensas T shirt, bait delivery man)pole on 105, as he caught regularly down the edge. It rubbed it in even more when he had to go and borrow an extra net fron John Green.....

With an hour and 10 mins to go, I chucked the lead over the waggler line and kept feeding, the tip went round and the first carp was netted, a 12lber. Next chuck another, but after fighting all the way to the net, the hook straightend - don't try out new hooks in matches, for the record it was a size 14 Guru QM1. Next chuck the tip went round before I had put the rod down and a foul hooked 8lber was netted.

And that was it, not another bite, or even liner, I packed up with half an hour to go, something I rarely do, but this must rank as one of my worst days at Viaduct, I had 4 bites, I've had more after breaking the ice.....

Its obvious where the blame must go, my new rod holdall, Bob Gullick was kind enough to get me a Garbolino rod holdall, as I'd been admiring the one he uses, today was its first outing, it has obviously destroyed the good karma of my new Avon Angling cap, its now known as the "Holdall of Doom".

I didn't hang around for the results, I'd have been surprised if Nigel hadn't won from 105, down the margin.