Monday, 25 August 2014

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 10th 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

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