Viaduct Silvers league Round 2. Sunday 20th October 2013

It was like groundhog day as Tony pulled up and we loaded my kit in the van for the second day running, off to Viaduct for a silvers match again.

I was disappointed to draw peg 59 on Lodge, dead opposite yesterdays peg.  a more cautious approach would surely be needed today?  I set up the same rigs as yesterday and had listened to Matt Tomes who drew the peg the day before and had caught roach, small hybrids and skimmers short.

I fed a line with groundbait and caster at 12m and the distance off to my left just with caster, also fed a 5m caster line to the tree and a margin line. Fir the second day running I caught a snag on the short line and trashed a rig, there are loads of submerged branches in Lodge it would appear. The other lines were slow and whilst Dan squires to my right was catching reasonable skimmers, I was catching skimmers that were 1-2oz, but the odd thing was that they are starting to turn bronze.  No matter what line I fished the fish were tiny, either that or 8lb+........

I persevered, but not matter what I did, I just couldn't get any quality fish, the biggest fish I had with 1 1/2 hours to go was 3oz.  The carp didn't help matters, no matter what line I fished, they were there and eating, whilst Dan and a couple of others, especially Mash on the end peg were getting carp, they were getting the decent stamp of skimmers in between.

With an hour to go I was close to packing up, but then had a roach which was nudging a pound, in perfect condition, is there a more lovely fish? By now I had used 25 hooklengths and landed 4 or 5 carp as well, when all of a sudden, with 25 minutes to go I had 4 decent skimmers on the trot, which just helped my belief that they weren't in front of me earlier. This took my weight from about  5 or 6lb to 12lb or so, before the carp moved back in and polished off another 5 hooklengths in the final 15 minutes. So 30 hooks gone and 4 or 5 carp landed, no wonder the skimmers weren't there.....

So two disappointing days, when I would have expected to do better, I probably fished too positively on Saturday, but that was a go for it day and Sunday, as Dan Squires fed 3 pints of maggot, maybe I fished too negatively. I think it was a hindrance rather than a help being on the same lake two days running.  As for Tony "I never draw a bad peg" Rixon, he mode the most of a good peg and won the match from peg 98 on Cary.

1) Tony Rixon 40.02 peg 98
2) Nick Collins 39.10 peg 111
3) Steve Mayo 37.06 peg 71
4) Mark Brennan 36.02 peg 129
5) Steve Kedge 36.01 peg 128
6) Bob Gullick 35.02 peg 78