Friday, 11 April 2014

Viaduct Costcutter,Open, Thursday 10th April 2014

On Wednesday I had a trip up to Barston lakes in preparation for a forthcoming match, nice looking place and I caught my first fish on a method feeder and boilie, totally different than all the waters we fish down here.

Anyway, onto Viaduct and 38 fished this costcutter, with anglers coming over the bridge from Wales, so even winning wouldn't cover their costs, but it is nice to fish a decent size match, rather than what amounts to a knockup.

Into the draw tin and out comes 112, with 18 on the lake, it meant I would have some room with 113 not pegged.  As I haven't been down to Viaduct for a few weeks, since the carp have started to wake up, I thought it best to cover all options and set up a straight lead, a waggler to fish at depth with no shot down the line and 3 pole rigs.  They were an NG margin float to fish back down towards 113, a NG Power Finesse to fish pellet at 14m and a MW diamond to fish meat at 5m.

Simple bait tray today, 6 and 8mm pellet and 6mm meat, on the all in I started on the lead, but in 15 minutes, apart from on vicious wrap round and a bumped fish (fouler I'm sure), not so much as a liner.  by now Scott on 111 was catching decent silvers short and the lad on 110 was 4 carp ahead of most on the lake who were having a slow start.  I dropped onto the 5m line and had 2 skimmers, a tench and 2 carp, before that went quiet, only to be expected I suppose, far too early to fish it short and hope to bag up.  I had been pinging some 6mm pellets on the 14m line and managed an intermittent few fish from here,  I hooked and lost a couple of foulers, but managed to keep that to a minimum by feeding twice and fishing it out before feeding again.

Further down the lake I could see some had started catching on the waggler, but as seemed to be the case all round, they had 3 or 4 fish and they backed off.  I had a quick look on the waggler, but not even a liner on that, so no more a bout either rod and line, as I caught nothing on either of them. With 2 hours to go I cupped 3 big potfuls of groundbait down the edge and came back on the meat line, this produced two quick fish and then nothing, a familiar pattern for today.  I dropped in the edge after refeeding some more groundbait and dead maggot, and had a roach, then a small carp, before both meat and dead maggot were being ragged by roach.  A look round the other two lines again produced the odd fish, whilst I had put two more potfuls of gbait down the edge, along with a pot of dead maggot, this produced three more carp two I landed, one went through a submerged snag and cut the line, but they were of a smaller stamp than the fish I was catching in front.

On the all out, it felt like it had been a hard day, as the fish came sporadically and I had clicked 63lb and 33lb for my carp nets and had about 6 or 7lb of silvers, as I didn't add to my initial burst of silvers.  With several weights ton+ before the scales got to me I had no thoughts of framing. My first net that I had clicked at 33lb went 47lb and I now had concerns about the other net if I had that badly under estimated the fishes weight.  First weigh was 39.12, second weigh was 41.12.... oops a red face and an frustrating mistake that cost me 11lb in weight as the net was called at 70lb and bumped me down from 3rd, to 6th, as it was quite a tight match, I can''t believe either how out of touch I have got during the winter, or how much weight the fish in Campbell have put on since last year, I think I had a few 8/9lbers that I probably clicked at 6lb.  Good job it was just a costcutter and not an expensive mistake in a big match.



1: Lewis Greenwood-King 162.12 peg 81
2: Dave ?? 155.00 peg 118
3: Scott Russell 135.13 peg 11
4: K Newman 130.05 peg 129
5: Dave Romain 126.10 peg 127
6: Chris (red faced) Fox 124.13 peg 112

Silvers:
1: Craig Tucker 57.05 peg 71
2: Scott Russell 48.02 peg 111
3: Steve long 44.08 peg 85

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