Friday 25 July 2014

Viaduct Costcutter, Thursday 24th July 2014

I was looking forward to getting back down to Viaduct and for company in the van I had Mike Walker, the journey seems to go a bit quicker with someone to talk to.  In stark contrast to yesterdays lowly turnout, there were 41 fishing today, which meant there weren't too many gaps in the pegging on either Campbell or Cary.  I got in near the start of the draw, with Mike in front of me, he pulled 119, maybe the wrong day for this peg, as what wind and ripple there was, was coming off the river banks of the lakes.  I was in for a munter hunter day, drawing 98.

When I got to the peg I was pleased to see the wind pushing into it and signs of fish at 6m, as well as further out.  Today was going to be a simple approach bait wise, 8mm pellet and paste, although I did set up a depth waggler, a shallow waggler, as well as two lead rods and three top kits, which held a simple paste rig on 0.18 with a 10 B911 XS for 7m, a shallow/slapping rig with a NG Ghandi and a depth pellet rig, which was on 0.18, with an 0.18 hooklength.

At the start I fed the paste line at 7m and then shipped out the depth rig to 14m, feeding 8mm pellets by catapult resulted in a few swirls, so I quickly swapped to the shallow rig and soon had a double in the net. I then foul hooked one on the shallow rig, which tore off and snapped (or cut through?) the elastic at the connector, frustrating as I spent a day last week cleaning all the pole sections, checking and renewing elastics, so there was no wear or obvious reason for it to snap.

In the time it took me to get another top kit and put a new rig on, the ripple that had been aiding me at 14m had gone, along with it the fish, so I swapped to the pellet waggler at about 30yds where there was still a ripple, feeding 8mm pellets here had the water erupting with fizz and the odd swirling fish and I had a couple, before the ripple subsided here and it was a lot of feeding and casting to get the odd bite, but it was worth the wait, as they were all except one, doubles.  At one stage the wind became awkward and I thought I'd be clever and set up a zig rig, with a pellet (and I tried a piece of pepperami) popped up to 6" below the surface, this resulted in one foul hooked skimmer and a foul hoked carp that was lost, so up the bank with that, so much for trying something different.

I could see that peg 76 was catching well, as the ripple had stayed on that end of the lake all day, where as with pegs 99 and 97 also now fishing the pellet waggler, the fish were becoming very wary of a hookbait.   I had several looks over the paste line and even though it was fizzing well, I had no bites, so back on the pellet wag.  I was trying a new (to me) way of attaching the float and I was pleased with the result, I had two small tangles in 4 hours of thrashing the water, one of which, I saw that the reel line had a little mark on it, but ignored it, next fish hooked, snapped the reel line - doh...  for the sake of two minutes to remake the set up and take out the damage, self inflicted numptyness.

With an hour to go the pellet waggler line had died, so a swap to the 7m paste line and this saw a fish netted first put in, with 3 more following in the final hour, giving me either 10 or 11 fish for 123.08, which was third on the lake and 8th overall,  one out of the money..... just my luck.   Travelling partner Mike, had 97.03 from 119, having a bit of a torrid time with the bush and fish going in there.....

I hadn't realised that Nick Ewers had been poorly and undergone a heart bypass, today was his first time back in a match and he looks well, one of anglings nice guys, I hope the recovery is quick and complete Nick. A good return as well, winning the silvers, beating venue owner Steve Long off the next peg.

1: R Wright 265.06 peg 76
2: Chris Kitchen 222.09 peg 105
3: Lee Werritt 205.10 peg 115
4: Tom Mangnall 172.13 peg 116
5: Jimmy Brooks 160.04 peg 111
6: Steve Openshaw 151.13 peg 132
7: Dan White 136.04 peg 121
8: Chris Fox 123.08 peg 98

Silvers

1: Nick Ewers 42.08 peg 87
2: Ziggy 38.06 peg 126
3: Steve Long 34.08 peg 88

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