Viaduct Winter League. Sunday 3rd March 2013

I had agreed to stand in for someone in Andy Lloyds team, I knew that I was to be on Match Lake or pegs 1-6 on Spring. It seemed like a good idea when I said yes, but arriving at the fishery and seeing the lakes frozen and knowing my ice breaker was still in the garage, made it seem somewhat daunting.  I wasn't alone, it seemed that the ratio of those who had brought ice breakers to those who hadn't, meant that the loan of one when the owner had finished with it, was like trading some exotic commodity.

I also hadn't been warned that Des (Shipp) was in my section and he drew a good peg, the aerator on Match Lake. The pegs in our section on Spring were frozen, our main hope was that it didn't thaw, so the anglers on the island pegs couldn't get out to where the big carp are led up. Sadly, the ice did thaw and the top 2 weights in the section came from pegs 3 and 4. Next weight in the section was Des, top angler on a good peg.

I had been drawn peg 51, walking round I saw Adrian Jefferies setting up on peg 39, this peg blanked last match and has not been a good draw for a while now, next to him and between us on 52 was Tim Clark, so at least I had a couple of guys to talk to, as we thought it would be a real struggle. I was about 4th in line to borrow Steve Sketton's ice breaker, managing to clear a chanel to 13m.

I optimistically set up a waggler and a lead rod, in case there was a  thaw and two pole rigs, one a 4x12 Chianti on 0.12 with a 0.08 hooklength finished off with a 22 hoook. A slightly more optimistic Malman (not sure what, I think its a forerunner to the Benny) on 0.12 with a 0.10 hooklength and a 20 hook. Plumbing around I found a slightly deeper hole at 8m, but never had a bite there, so no morer about that line.

I fed a tangerine size ball of g/bait with 4 pinkies and 4 casters at 13m against the ice when the all in was called. It didn't take too long to get a bite and a 3oz rudd was in the net. A couple of roach followed, Tim on 52 then had a decent skimmer, thankfully my float dipped and a skimmer a fair bit bigger than Tim's graced my net.  A couple more skimmers followed and I couldn't match Tim's catch rate, although his fish were slightly smaller. The wind had got up and was putting a slight ripple on the water, I think this was beneficial to the fishing, but it melted the ice, which wasn't beneficial. As the ice thawed, the bites dried up, I got the 16m section out and fed a line at 16m with g/bait, two more skimmers followed and then disappeared again. I did try out past 16m with the waggler and had a few chucks with the lead, but not a bite on either.

The rest of the match was spent catching very small roach and rudd, the skimmers had shut up shop, I'm not sure if it was the cover of the ice going, or the ice melting and lowering the water temp.

So I had a better day than most, including myself, were predicting at the start, a few bites and a couple of decent skimmers, I ended up with 12 points for my 11.03 which was 4th on the lake.

1.      Mark Broomsgrove 92-12-0 peg 116

2.      Simon Jones 71-15-0 peg 125

3.      Andy Power 69-0-0 peg 86

4.      Vince Brown 67-11-0 peg 16

5.      John Buckingham 61-06-0 peg 66

6.      Dave Roper 51-09-0 peg 90

Silvers:

1.      Tony Rixon 37-14-0 peg 102

2.      Anton Page 32-01-0 peg 18

3.      Rob Jones 30-03-0 peg 77