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