Tony Rixon's Float Only, Round 1, Viaduct. Sunday 19th May 2013

I'd been looking forward to fishing this series for the first time and I wasn't too bothered whether I drew on Campbell or Cary and with 20 pegs on each, it was even chances.  Out of the coffee tin comes 118, I had already decided to make this a positive match just fishing for carp, so the bait bag contained 8mm pellets, 10mm meat and some paste.  This obviously influenced the rigs I set up, which were a full depth waggler, a shallow waggler, a paste rig, a shallow pellet rig, a full depth pellet rig and a meat rig to plunder the 5m line.

I consciously didn't set up a margin rig, John Bradford had advised me before the match "you need 20 elastic and 0.20 to get them out of those brambles".  I really don't enjoy that sort of fishing, dragging the fish and bits of sodden vegetation out.

I started on the full depth pellet line at 14m, catapulting 8mm's in, within a couple of drop in's I had a 2 or 3  liners and could see some swirls under the surface, so straight out with the shallow rig and I was soon attached to a 8lb common which was safely netted.  Back out and slapping the rig saw the float shoot under again, but this time disaster struck, the No4 section snapped, right at the base of the male 'ferrule'.  No idea why, I did have a tight line to the float and the fish hit it hard, but I have never had a section broken by a fish before.  So off the box, a spare No4 found, another topkit and back out on the shallow rig.

That had broken my rhythm and I had several attempts to snag the topkit with my waggler rod, to no avail and it was towed round the for an hour, before Anton on peg 123 managed to hook it and recover the topkit and rig unharmed and he landed the fish. It was slow going, just an odd fish on the 5m meat line, along with 2 bream and a big skimmer. A look on the waggler with meat saw a couple of bites before a 5lb fish came to the net, but that followed the other lines, in dying quickly once a fish had been caught.

With an hour and a half to go, I had 55lb on my clicker and about 8lb in the silvers net and I was falling well behind, so in sheer desperation I got off my box and set up a power kit, onto which went 0.20 line, a 0.18 hooklength and a 14 B911 X-strong. Fishing meat down to the brambles I had a bite every put in until the end, 2 tench and 37lb of carp. At the cost of another No4 section (poor pole handling technique - entirely my own fault), several hooklengths and plenty of lost fish. It really was a matter of lift into the bite and then just pull as hard as possible towards the middle of the lake. Several of the fish that had been hooked well inside the mouth, had 1" long rips where the hook had pulled through the flesh.

 My stubbornness cost me, as I was last but one in the section with my 109.01 total, the three weights that beat me were 116, 130 and 150, eminently doable had I not been determined to avoid the snag ridden margin. So a frustrating day and I wanted a good start to the league as the next match is at my bête noir, Landsend.

See Tony's blog for results.