Viaduct Silvers league Round 1. Sunday 6th October 2013

The unseasonal October weather promised sunshine and the lightest of breezes, hardly ideal conditions to herald the start of a silvers series.  Campbell lake has been particularly tough for silvers lately, although last Wednesdays match did hint that sport was picking up, that said, the consensus was pretty unanimous that to be that for a chance of framing, a draw away from Campbell, on Cary or Lodge would be necessary.

A nice treat this morning, a lift down from Tony (Rixon), especially as the time I got in on Saturday night is a little vague, after a trip into town to see Jimmy Carr, all the good intentions of coming straight home, were destroyed by the temptation of the City Center nightlife.

Into the draw tin and out comes 110 on Campbell........ WTF do I have to do to draw a decent peg!!  Still as its a series and the main thing is to get section points, so after collecting several commiserations (and some smug grins) on the way, I got to 110 and tried to plan out a way to score points from an unfavoured peg. I set up a small feeder and waggler rods, but they were packed away again at the end without either wetting a line.

This left my pole lines to consider, I set up a rig to hopefully catch some Tench down by the stump, although they haven't shown there for a while, a double bulk rig to fish over groundbait, with CW&C, a standard bulk and two dropper rig and a colmic pencil to fish caster close in.  I used an electric drill and groundbait whisk for the first time to mix my groundbait - why have I waited so long!!  A perfect mix that doesn't need riddling and in a fraction of the time, I'm now converted.

My bait tray was caster, worm, maggot as the main baits, I did dampen a few micro's and pump up some expanders and open a tin of corn, but given the conditions I was convinced putting any sort of pellet in would see the carp arrive in numbers.  On the all in I put 5 balls of groundbait on a line at 12m, off to my left, using the opposite corner point of the lake as a marker, loose fed caster short and cupped in some CW&C down by the stump.

Starting short, I managed a few small roach on maggot, as caster was a waste of time, a bite on it everytime, but when I managed to hook something on it, it was of the 3 or 4 to the oz stamp, the reverse of what you'd expect as the maggot fish were 1-3oz. After half an hour, I went out over the groundbait line and sat and waited, watching a motionless float, there was no indication of fish there, so I abandoned that and re-fed it with 2 more balls of groundbait.  I had a look down by the stump and missed a bite first drop in, dropping the rig back in and it shot under, this time a small tench safely netted.

By now I was behind Clayton (Hudson) on peg 111, who had managed to get three  tench so far and my hopes that the tench had re inhabited the stump in great numbers were sadly dashed, as for the rest of the match, the stump produced either a small perch or a carp that disappeared round the back of the stump.

At last, an odd bubble or two over the groundbait, so back out with the double bulk rig and three decent skimmers netted in half an hour or so, not dramatic sport, but clawing back some ground on Clayton and Nigel Bartlett on 112. Then the carp decided that they would muscle in on the skimmers party and either foulers or properly hooked carp made the line a waste of time.

I did try a line fed with micros at about 7m straight in front, first drop in with a 4mm expander saw a carp take it immediately, so that line was abandoned.  By now I was having some amusement, watching Clayton, it was like a well oiled bagging machine, sadly for him, it was carp after carp.  One 'carp' he was tussling with and pulling a bit hard popped up and was a tench, his sudden change of playing style to careful, allowed the tench to go around his platform legs, through his keepnets and provide a couple of minutes of  entertainment, but it was obviously well hooked as he safely netted it.

I found that by staying short, I was avoiding the worst of the carp, if I had set up a shallow rig, I could have caught a roach a chuck, but I stuck at the full depth rig and pieces of worm, as this produced at a slower rate, but with a tench, some skimmers and better roach, it was a better stamp of fish. Towards the end, the best way to get bites was feed a tiny ball of groundbait with CW&C every 10 put ins and a bigger ball of plain groundbait every put in.

So a disappointing draw and I honestly didn't have a clue what weight I had, due to the wide variation in fish sizes and sporadic catch rate, I was last in the section to weigh and had Anton page's 27lb to beat, I knew I didn't have that, but was pleasantly surprised to see the scales pull round to 22.13, which was 3rd in section.  Which given the weights in the section, I wonder now if I abandoned the skimmer line too soon, or if I should have tried starting a new one, but then the time spent doing that would have cost me some of the fish taken short.

Campbell weighboard below.

As predicted, the framers came from Cary and Lodge, maybe Campbell will keep improving and compete as the weather gets colder.

1. Matt Tomes 41-05-0 peg 78
2. Bob Gullick 40-03-0 peg 86
3. Paul Faiers 37-02-0 peg 69
4. Tony Rixon 36-09-0 peg 101
5. Andy Neal 35-07-0 peg 97
6. Ian Didcot 34-03-0 peg 100