Tuesday 25 September 2012

Viaduct Silvers League, Sunday 23rd September

Well, I'd been looking forward to this, treated myself to another nice breakfast in the Bear, in Street. I must admit I was pretty deflated once I saw peg 74 staring at me as I opened the swimcard. It must be one of the shallowest pegs on the lake and with the easterly wind and rain blowing straight into it, I just knew it would be hard going.
I set up 4 rigs, one for perch/tench in the margin, a rig to fish to hand, although I did think that was a bit too optimistic, and a couple of rigs for 6m and 11m.

I struggled to get anything but the odd roach and tiny skimmer, trying lines with and without groundbait, with and without worm and maggot only. A perch and two hybrids which together went 5 -6lb made up the bulk of the weight I achieved, which I assume was last in section, 10.7.

Can't really be arsed to write anymore about what should have been an enjoyable day ruined by the draw and weather.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Viaduct Silvers Open, Wednesday 19th September 2012

Nice treat this morning, picked up by Tony Rixon, so no driving. We had a decent and large (although I couldn't compete with Tony) breakfast in the Bear, Street.
Campbell was the venue for today's silvers match, the bright sun was a concern, as skimmers rarely seem to feed well when the sun shines. I fancied a draw in the low to mid 120's, but as usual I had to make do with the opposite side of the lake and the other end!!

I drew 112, Tony managed fancied 123, so he was going to be difficult to beat. As this match was a practice for the silvers league which starts this Sunday, I set up a waggler rod, with a 3AAA peacock insert, an 0.10 hooklength and a 20 silverfish match hook. Next to that was a cage feeder, this with 0.12 and a middy 63.13 hook size 16 - I didn't touch this during the match, so no more about lead chucking.

3 Pole rigs, a 4x14 jolly on 0.14 with a 20 silverfish match hook on 0.10, a MW diamond, with a double bulk on 0.14 and a 0.12 hooklength (3") finished off with a 16 808 hook. Lastly, a Maver float on 0.15 with a 0.13 hooklength and a 16 B911, in case there were some tench in the margin.

Bait tray was nice and simple, big box of casters, small box of maggots, some worms and a few dampened micro's, accompanying that was a couple of kilos of groundbait. On the all in, I cupped in 6 big balls of groundbait at 11m, this had a few micros and casters in. I started at 5m, fed this with small ball of groundbait by hand and had a skimmer about 2oz, first drop in. Then roach moved in, so I dropped short, to just the topkit and refed, the roach followed the feed in and I caught them reasonably steadily until the half hour mark, when I went out to the 11m line, looking for skimmers.

First drop in with a soft pellet and a quick bite missed, next drop in a small roach, 3rd drop in a carp, which thankfully shed the hook. Back to the topkit and the roach started to come one a chuck, I wished I had a whip with me, as I prefer a flick tip for roach fishing. It seemed to be fishing hard - except those fishing the margins and long lines seemed to be finding the unwanted carp quite frequently. I had been feeding my RH margin which cuts back to peg 113, hoping for a bonus big perch or some tench, they didn't show, I had a couple of roach, then hooked a carp which trashed the rig (still don't know where the float went when it flew off the line, leaving its rubbers behind.), I didn't bother resetting up that topkit again.

I did have a look on the waggler, having loose fed some caster at about 18m, I had two bites, both resulted in carp being hooked, so that went back up the bank and back onto the topkit and head down, catching roach. I had a couple of bonus skimmers in the last half hour, still on the topkit and I was wondering if I;d sneak into some money, as it had fished hard and everyone had seemed to stick it out for skimmers and tench, which didn't really feed.

It turned out that the favoured peg 123 with Tony Rixon sat on it produced 10 tench and a few skimmers for Tony to win, with peg 126 giving up some skimmers for Ziggy in second. I managed to get third place, winning my bank and section, so at least some coin back to help offset the cost of that huge brekkie I bought for Tony. I forgot how tiring that roach fishing is, I didn't count them but I probably had 200+ roach.

1) Tony Rixon 41.08 peg 123
2) Ziggy Slowinski 32.13 peg 126
3) Chris Fox 25.12 peg 112
4) John Bradford 25.10 peg 125
5) Dick Bull 16.10 peg 115
6) Paul Blake 15.10 peg 111

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Viaduct Open, Wednesday 5th Sept 2012

Today's match was on the Match Lake, a lake which has seen me have mixed results, it does seem that depending upon the weather conditions, the fish seem to muster in certain areas. I quite fancied peg 47 today, as the island foliage gives good shade from the sun as the match progresses. I wasn't the only one who fancied it, Howard Webb said he'd like it and promptly drew it - how do some people do that!! 42 stuck to my palm.

I had caster and pellet, soft and hard today and as I managed to frame one match on this lake, fishing bread when I couldn't catch on anything else, I stopped at the supermarket in Somerton and got a loaf. I set up two rigs for the open water, both pencils, one with a fine tip, 0.08 and 20 Gama green hook. The other with a thicker tip, 0.12 and a 16 63.13 for pellet.

The waggler rod was an original Normark Microlight, an excellent skimmer rod, this had an 0.10 hooklength with a 18 Gama black hook. I did set up a lead rod, as it was going to be the only way to sensibly fish the island, the wind making waggler fishing tight to the island (conventional or pellet) impossible.

The waggler fished at 18/20m gave one decent skimmer on red maggot, before the nuisance fish made it (even with double caster) impossible to get near the bottom. The pole line with soft pellet went the same way and bites were pretty rare and impossible to hit on banded 6mm. With just over an hour gone I gave in and chucked the lead and bread, the tip went round before I has sunk the line and a carp at least 4lb graced the net.

I did try setting up a dumpy waggler on the Microlite, to fish shallow, but I couldn't get it to stay near the island for even two seconds and mending the line to stop it drifting, just pulled it further away. So back to the bread/lead, I had an indication most put in's, but they were a mixture of liners, proper bites and some of the fish managed to get the bread off without getting hooked.

The wind wasn't overly strong, but it was very intermittent, that caused a couple of wayward casts to land over the aerator rope, necessitating setting up again, as I had no hooks ready tied it cost me time. The fish came in little spells, but continually enough for me to stick with it, as the skimmers were scarce in this area of the lake, Rowland on 43 was struggling to catch them, so I just stuck it out on bread until the end. With 30 mins to go I hooked a big fish that ran off and manged to snap the 4lb reel line, maybe it was a decent fish foul hooked, so yet more time wasted in re-tackling up.

My efforts weren't enough to pick up today, Howard won from peg 47, with Lee Werrett 2 ounces behind.

1) Howard Webb 114.13 peg 47
2) Lee Werrett 114.11 peg 50
3) Jim Baines 77.07 peg 52
4) Chris Fox  69.11 peg 42
5) Jim Butcher 41.07 peg 49
6) Herbie 41.05 peg 45

Silvers

1) Howard Webb 47.05
2) Rowland 21.05 peg 43

Trinity, wildmarsh. Sunday 2nd Sept 2012

Seems like ages since I last fished, I think I seriously underestimated the amount of work that needed doing when we moved, but its getting there now, I'm hoping, it will be finally finished by Xmas, so back to normal next year.

I came with the intention of fishing for silvers and wasn't too disappointed with peg 30, I set up a waggler, a pole rig to fish soft pellet and a margin rig. There was a bit of blowing at 25 yards or so out, so I did set up a feeder and had a few chucks with it, but not so much as a liner, so that went up the bank.

I fed a line at 13m with some micros and softened 4mm pellets, this produced a decent skimmer, but bites weren't very forthcoming, I could see Tony Rixon, Mike West and Tom Thick all catching on the opposite bank, so jumped off my box and set up a paste rig. That brought another decent skimmer, there was much blowing and fizzing, but the float remained motionless for long, long, spells. A very lively carp then took the paste and after a long tussle, shed the hook at the net, so much for that.

A look on the short line brought a run of roach to caster and another line at 20 yards off to my left produced some decent roach on the waggler and caster, but they wouldn't stay and feed, one or two fish and then nothing, until the line had been rested. The margin only saw one fleeting bit of action, the float buried with two worms under it and a carp (probably fouled) ran off until the No16 elastic bottomed out and the hook pulled.

A tench and some more roach ( and one more lost carp) on the short line concluded my day and I should have fished for silvers all day, as my 15lb was enough for 3rd in silvers.
 
1.      Adrian Clark 63-05-0 peg Island 10
2.      Steve Segar 56-03-0 peg 39
3.      Alan Oram 53-14-0 peg Island 3
4.      Mike West 39-03-0 peg 59
5.      Tony Rixon 35-04-0 peg 60
6.      Tom Thick 31-12-0 peg 57
 
Silvers:
 
1.      Tom Thick 19-05-0 peg 57
2.      Nick Collins 17-02-0 peg 19
3.      Chris Fox 15-0-0 peg 30