Sunday, 17 August 2014

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 2nd and 3rd 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

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