Viaduct Xmas Match, Saturday 10th December 2011

A draw and breakfast at the Globe, in Somerton, meant an easy start to the day. Three lakes in the drawbag today and no doubt, the draw would be important, with the fish settling into their winter quarters and the overnight frost. (Down to -3°C on the van temp. gauge).

The numbers banded about before the draw as being desirable, were the usual suspects, 110, 130, 85 and the island pegs on spring,  bookies wouldn't have lost much had they offered odds based on the general consensus. My ever unreliable drawing arm gave me 119, although somewhat heartend by the fact it threw up a weight on last weeks Carps match. I had tried to keep things simple on the bait tray, meat, bread, caster & maggot, with a kilo of worms in the bait bag ( that has accompanied me, unopened, for several weeks now!!). I set up a waggler and a straight lead, both to fish meat, a MW diamond to fish at 16m and a Carpa Chimp to fish caster at 13m. A margin rig joined the set up, to fish 16m down to the end bank.

I started pretty negatively, searching the peg with the waggler, lead and margin rig, without feeding, trying to find a bite, all to no avail. The 13m caster line didn't produce a single bite, to caster or maggot, even dropping down to a 22 on 0.08. By midday and still biteless, I decided to switch to fishing maggot down into the corner and across to the pallet of 120, The only place in the peg I could get a bite, was next to the sunken tree in the corner. Of course, the closer to the tree, the more likely a bite, but also more likely a lost fish. It still didn't go mad, I had 5 carp for 13.15 and 2 perch/3 roach for 2lb, a total of 15.15, this was 7th on the lake, with, as expected the weights improving towards the opposite end. 3 fish managed to escape into the tree, 2 of a similar stamp to those I landed and 1 decent fish, but they wouldn't have made a difference on the day.

Spring lake produced the goods, with Simon Jones having a great days fishing and the old favourite, peg 85 gave Dick Bull some cash and the second place hamper.

1) Simon Jones 183.08 peg 3
2) Dick Bull 80.03 peg 85
3) Steve Mayo 77.01 peg 4
4) Colin Dyer 66.15 peg 5
5) Fred Roberts 66.14 peg 129
6) Terry Lenny 65.05 peg 110

Silvers

1) Ray Hayward 17.02 peg 78
2) Geoff Barnett 14.14 peg 18