Viaduct Costcutter, Thursday 28th August 2014

I got to Viaduct and discovered that I had left my lead rods at home, oh well, that whats you get for fishing the day after an all day session, watching England get humiliated by India, in Cardiff.  Not a great loss, unless I drew Cary, which I didn't, 127 was my peg, just one along from Sunday, so at least the rigs would be just about right.... 27 fishing this one today.

Looking at the weigh sheet from Wednesdays match, it looked like I was on wrong bank, as the winning weights, four over 200lb were all from the Cary side of the lake.  A phone call to Yesterdays winner, Tony Rixon,  gleaned me a bit of information, I set up a shallow rig, but this didn't get used, a rig to fish meat short, another to fish it at 13m and a margin rig, although with 126 and 128 in, that was more in hope than expectation.

Two waggler rods completed the tackle set up and I was sat ready for the off, starting at 13m with meat, saw a foul hooker lost and lots of missed bites, the wind got up and I abandoned the 13m line, I had a couple short on meat, but Chris Rolfe on 126 was catching on the lead, so I switched to the full depth waggler and had one first cast, I had one more and there were a few swirls when the pellets landed, so a switch to the pellet waggler brought a fish straight away, but that was to be my only bite on it.

A pattern was forming, switch lines, bait or method and get a fish, then nothing, by the half way point I had about 50lb and even switching lines  had stopped working, bites were hard to come by.  I fed the margins and went back to trying to catch in the open water, but within 10 minutes I tried the margin, this produced the biggest fish of the day, a 12lber and then a 3lb bream and following the pattern, that was the end of the margin.

The short meat line started to fizz again and this did produce a run of fish, although the bites on meat were a bit 'iffy' and difficult to hit, a switch to worm over the meat feed saw the bites become much more positive and resulted in a properly hooked fish every time. As seems to happen a lot lately, the all out came just when I was in a good spell of catching, the last hour had seen me add a few lbs to the net and the nets went 146.01 for 3rd on the day.

1: Dave White 190.04 peg 77
2: Giles Cochrane 155.12 peg 119
3: Chris Fox 146.01 peg 127
4: Andy Eagles 145.14 peg 125
5: P Nut 128.05 peg 132
6: J Guy 123.11peg 130

Silvers

1: Glenn Calvert 33.00 peg 85
2: Martin Preston 32.08 peg 111

Float Only League, Final Round, Viaduct, Sunday 24th August 2014

As I was too far from the leaders to make the section points count, this last round of the float only league was in reality for me, a 40 peg open.  A decent draw on either Campbell or Cary would suit and whilst I wasn’t running to it, 128 is not the worst draw on the complex, although it has a varied record.

I set up two wagglers, one shallow and one full depth, which was wasn’t deep, I had little over 2’ anywhere in the peg, so not too much difference between the shallow and depth rigs. The pole rigs consisted of a meat rig to fish at 6m, a shallow pellet rig (which didn’t come out of the roost), a full depth pellet rig, a margin rig to fish up against the spit and a paste rig, as I wasn’t sure which would be better, paste or meat.

I started on the depth waggler, double pouching 8mm pellets to try and keep the fish on the deck, I had a 3lb fish on this within the first few minutes, but it was a false dawn and 2 ½ hours later I had managed one more fish on paste, it was almost a case of Déjà vu from yesterday. 

I had a conversation with Tony Rixon earlier in the week and we had agreed that 100lb was an achievable weight from virtually every peg on Campbell during the summer months; that discussion point was looking like biting me firmly on the ass.

I had been feeding a short meat line and this produced two 6oz skimmers, to accompany the two carp, the shallow water in this peg was not conducive to the fish coming short and I had been reluctant to go to the spit too early, but by the halfway point, I had to, as I still had less than 10lb in the net.

I opted for the groundbait approach at 10m along the spit, the first drop in saw a fish come to the net and the 3 more, before it went quiet, I refed and had another look on the meat line, this gave up another skimmer and two carp, but the bites were few and far between. With two hours to go I went back to the spit and had fish right up to the end with the peg getting stronger and stronger, shame they were mostly 3-5lb fish, with only a two 8 or 9lber’s. 125lb of my total came in those last 2 hours, shame it wasn’t like that for 4 or 5 hours…..

 4 skimmers and a couple of perch, along with the carp went 151.00, too little too late, I didn’t see the completed weigh sheets, but I think I was about 10^th overall with that weight, beaten into third in the section by pegs 124 and 126, who had the advantage of 125 being waggler fished only, as Tim Clark had a family issue to deal with and left shortly before the all-in, with Martin McMahon using Tim’s waggler rod to fish the peg.

Maybe I should have gone to the spit a bit earlier; would they have come and settled there with confidence?  If they had I would have been looking at a framing place, so perhaps I got that wrong as the bites were so few and far between in the open water. 

1: Craig 'Trigger' Edmunds 245.15 peg 111

2: Paul Elmes 130.15 peg 130

3: Ray hayward 179.15 peg 126

4: Lee Werritt 169.15 peg 112

5: Shaun Townsend  167.02 peg 118

Silvers

1: Dan Squires 36.13 peg 76

Maver Pairs, Larford Lakes, Saturday 23 August 2014

I had paired up with Mike Walker to fish this match and given that Mike has fished the Match lake a few times, he was going to be on there and myself on Speci lake.  We had a decent drive up and had decided that my drawing arm should be kept well away from the draw buckets today, so Mike did the honours, giving me peg 9 on Speci and himself peg 13 (or was it 11, bit of a senior moment here…) on Match.

The latest results and information we had was from the UK Champs which had been on Wednesday, Mike was definitely at the ‘right’ end of his section and my draw wasn’t too bad, that’s if the fish hadn’t used their fins……

Plenty of time to get ready, but I wasn’t tempted to set up more than I planned, we had discussed a basic plan and decided not to deviate from this, as in a 5 hour match against some venue experts and top anglers, we felt our best chance was not having too many options.  This for me was a method feeder, a straight lead, pellet waggler and a rig for 5-7m (wherever the  shelf/bottom, plumbed up with a not too steep slope).  The plan was to start on the method feeder, whilst feeding a bomb/waggler line frequently with 8mm pellets, the method was fished a little way past this to show any liners, indicating the fish were over the bomb line.

First chuck in I had a drop back on the method, I missed the freespool lever and the baitrunner span like a whirling dervish, creating a huge birds nest of the line, which was never going to be untangled. So I had to handline it back in, new spool on and reset up, I may have well as not bothered, there were no further bites forthcoming.  

To cut a long and boring story short, I managed one carp, on the pellet waggler, the only bite I had.  After about 3 ½ hours I deviated from the plan and tried worm on the pole, hoping to catch anything, just to put another fish in the net. This was pointless, as I had no indication of any kind on the pole.  I wasn’t alone in struggling there were a fair few who managed less than my one carp, the weights were low, with only a handful of the 50 odd of anglers on the lake managing to put 5 or 6 fish together.

Meanwhile, whilst I was letting the side down, Mike fished a tidy match and kept alternating between method and bomb, various baits and put together a section winning 59lb.  It was very disappointing to do so poorly, bu I really have no idea what I could have done differently, apart from stick to one method the whole match, the lake fished so badly, I have was a loss to know what I could have done to get more than the one bite.

I didn’t get the results, but they should be on the Larford website in the next couple of days.

Viaduct Open, Saturday 16th August 2014

It was good to be heading back to Viaduct, I had Mike Walker travelling with me for company in the van, the Café at Shipham was the fuelling point, before getting to Viaduct and finding that 29 were fishing, so the match was spread over Cary and Lodge.  I fancied a draw on Cary, I had a new rod I wanted to try out, but it wasn’t to be, I ended up on 71 a peg I wasn’t confident of doing too well from, but decided to fish it positively and hope for the best.

I did initially leave the rods in the van, but went back and got them, setting up a shallow and full depth waggler and my new lead rod, I had two chucks with the lead rod whilst I replaced a trashed rig, with nothing to show for it, so it remains unchristened.

4 topkits set up, a rig to fish 8mm pellet at 13m, a rig to fish meat at 5m, a paste rig for 5m off to my right and a margin rig. The meat line was going to be a bit of a throwaway line, my main lines of attack being the 13m pellet line and 5m paste, with hopefully the margin coming into play towards the end.  The all in saw me feeding softened 6mm pellets on the 5m paste line  and 8mm pellets on the 13m line.

Both lines started fizzing and it wasn’t long before a 10lb fish was in the net, falling to 8mm pellet on the 13m line, a couple of liners and a foul hooker which came off followed, before the activity ceased.  The 5m paste line was fizzing and had the bigger circular patches of bubbles giving away the presence of carp, so I switched and was rewarded with 3 fish before the activity died off.

As the paste and pellet lines were now not producing bites or liners, I started up a waggler line past the 13m line and this brought a 6lb fish and then a lost fouler, but it wasn’t hectic action, I did have a look on the 5m meat line, the float bobbed once in 10 minutes and there was no indication that there were fish over the loose feed.  Back on the paste and another fish, I had a couple of liners and a lost fish, before this line died off again.

With 3 hours gone, I fed the margin with groundbait and left it 15 minutes, before dropping in and catching 3 fish in as many put ins. Keeping the feed going in saw 3 or 4 more fish come to the net before the line died, I kept feeding in the hope the fish would come back, but wasted too much time on this, before going back on the paste and landing another low double and losing one at the net on the whistle.  This proved to be a costly loss, as my fish weighed 158.11 and only 4.03 separated me from second place.  That and my meagre two skimmers which made up 2.12 of my catch, whilst the 2^nd and 3^rd places had 9.07 and 5.01 respectively, so a tale of lost fish and lack of skimmers which cost me.  Still an enjoyable day and an unexpected pick up  from a peg I had thought would be an also ran.  Traveling partner Mike had drawn Cary 96 and weighed 88-12 which was the best weight from 88 round to 102, Cary took a back seat to lodge today, apart from the winner.

A special mention for Phil ‘Fabio’ Harding, he tipped back about 80lb and the section money was taken with 41.12……. Gabriel winning the section money by default and the silvers money.

1: Mark Wynne 184.00 peg 102

2: Barry Richards 162.14 peg 70

3: James Knight 161.4 peg 73

4: Chris Fox 158.11 peg 71

5:Neil Morgan 135.01 peg 55

6: M Rogers 127.05 peg 59

Silvers

1: Gabriel  41.12 peg 68

Short Pole Series, Round Three, Trinity Woodland, Sunday 10th August 2014

This has been an enjoyable series so far, a third and a fourth over all, each time with a section second saw me in fourth place going into this match, so only a section win would do.  The banter started a couple of weeks back, when Tony Rixon text me a photograph of the knockout draw sheet for this match, accompanied by the tasteful words.. "Your ass is mine".   So the challenge was set, I needed revenge for Shiplate in the Float Only series, where he needed a foul hooker to knock me out.

Tony picked me up, so a bit of banter and general chat as we made our way to the venue, via the cafe, keeping a close eye on the weather as we did so, were the dregs of Hurricane Bertha  going to cause us problems??  The usual friendly greeting and mug of coffee greeted us, whilst the weather held fair, with virtually no breeze, overcast and warm.  I managed to get myself about fourth or fifth in the draw queue, before I stuck my hand in the tin, Tony had fishery manager, Misha, draw his peg and she put end peg 32 into his palm, he looked like the cat who'd had the cream.....

My drawing arm must have been charmed this week, as I managed to pull out 23, the other end peg on the car park bank, so at least I would have some chance.  It was to be a simple approach again, although as there was so much time I set up 5 rigs. My usual paste rig, on 0.20, to a size 12 B911XS, a MW diamond with strung out No 10's to fish banded pellet, two margin rigs, both NW Springer Sampson floats on 0.20 to 0.18 hooklengths one with a band, one without.  Finally I set up a 0.6g MW Pinger with a bulk of No8's against the hooklength loop, fished 4" overdepth, as the wind was starting to get up.  Bait tray consisted of 8mm pellets, corn and paste, with in reserve, a bucket of groundbait and several pints of dead maggots.

Starting on the 'long line' with 8mm pellet produced one small skimmer and a foul hooker that that took me through a margin snag and whilst I got the rig back complete, the float had been pushed down to the shot and the line was an artistic spiral pattern, so that was the end of that.  A switch to paste on that line saw a fish about 7lb in the net and next put in I hooked a decent fish and was somewhat frustrated to lose it at the net, discovering that the hook had straightened out, the fish was around the 15lb mark and with the lake fishing tough, that could be costly.

No more bites forthcoming on the paste and by now, the wind had got itself up into a good blow, which was resulting in difficulty presenting a bait at the full length of topkit + 3, I tried worm on the Pinger rig, laid 4" on the bottom and this gave me a 4lb ghostie, along with some 3 or 4, 12oz skimmers, before that too became dead.  The edge hadn't produced any bites to hard pellet or corn, so I put two big potfuls of groundbait in, with half a pot of dead maggots and this did give up three fish in three drop ins, before I needed to go for an unplanned walk to the toilet.  This enforced walk gave me the opportunity to see how it was fishing and it was looking tough, Tony had just landed a fish about 9lb and he told me that was his sixth, I had five, so tight and all to fish for.

The margin line then saw a few roach come to the dead maggots, so I refed heavily with groundbait and dead maggot, taking one more fish on paste whilst I let the margin settle. The last hour was a decent one, with a fish most drop ins, I even had them swirling in the margin at one point. With 20 minutes to go I started a second net, this held three fish which went 22lb, with 65lb in the other net and 3lb odd of silvers, my total went 89.09 for first on the day, giving me the needed section win and sweet revenge for Shiplate, that'll teach Mr Rixon to send cocky texts.......

All to fish for, in round four, the final round of this league, on Sept 13th.

1: Chris Fox 89.09 peg 23
2: Rod Wootton 81.01 peg 8
3: Paul Elmes 74.13 peg 29
4: Glenn Bailey 64.07 peg 2
5: Tony 'spanked' Rixon 56.13 peg 32
6: Steve Seager 52.08 peg 25

Silvers

1; Tom Mangnell 18.07 peg 15

Tony Rixon's Float Only Series, Round 5, Sedges. Sunday 3rd August 2014

I was looking forward to this after a long week at work, finishing at 11pm Saturday night.  As any chance of a place in the league standings is long gone, I had prepared a positive approach of 8mm pellet on the waggler and paste short. This plan was slightly altered by drawing peg 10, which is an end peg, so a bank to fish to, although the margin is still a good 4' deep, deeper than I'd like ideally. I had two wagglers already set up, a 2 swan pellet waggler and a full depth waggler, I bought a couple of the blue plastic Preston wagglers last time I was at Whiteacres and used this, can't say I was impressed with how they cast, doubt if I'll be buying any more!!

Pole rigs were a paste rig for 5m, just at the bottom of the slope, a rig to fish the end bank margin, as well as a depth pellet rig and shallow pellet rig, neither of which touched the water.  I decided against putting any groundbait into the end bank swim, because of the depth and the way it quickly sloped off to deeper water, this was fed with 8mm pellets, hemp and corn, the 5m line was fed with hemp and softened 6mm pellets, before starting on the pellet waggler, I fished this towards a tree on the end bank, as this was the only area of the peg with any signs of fish in.  It didn't take too long before I had netted my first fish, although this proved to be a bit of a false dawn, as bites were hard to come by and after 3/4 of an hour I switched to the depth waggler, this produced a fish, then a couple of unhittable bites, which I am sure were liners, so back on the pellet waggler and another fish taken.  I managed to loose two wagglers to the end bank vegetation and as it was so quiet, I went round and retrieved them both, one had a fair bit of line on it and I hate leaving line trailing  around.

It was now 3 hours into the match and I had very little to show for it, the paste line had no fizzing of indication that there were fish evident, so I went to the end bank, which I had been feeding, but left alone as long as I could.  I took two fish in two drop ins from here, on double corn, taking my weight to 25lb, then the pleasure anglers on the canal, who were in close proximity to my end bank swim, decided to walk up and down and chat, they had on a white Tee shirt and one had a yellow reflective jacket on (god knows why, it was very warm!!) that was the end of that line, I had one more bite from it and that was a lonesome tench.

With 2 hours to I dropped back in on the paste line, as there was on odd bubble coming up, I had a couple of skimmers and another carp in the next hour. The bubbles started to get more vigorous in the last hour and I had a few more skimmers and a few carp, but no quality, the biggest fish was taken with 9 minutes to go and was about 9lb, the biggest fish by 4lb easily.  In the last half hour, there was bits of twig and old black leaves coming to the top as fish were rooting around in the bottom, it was a case of too little too late today and I think I ended up about 7th with 83lbish, of which 50lb was caught in the last hour.  I was pretty pissed off with the pleasure anglers, but they were real novices and obviously had no idea of the effect they had on my peg, as it would have only taken a short run of fish from there to move me into a framing position.

Didn't get the results as I had to dash off and get to the Indian for a nice curry, so I'm sure Tony will have them on his blog.