Monday, 29 September 2014

Viaduct Open, Saturday 27th September 2014



Travelled to Viaduct with Mike Walker, who wanted to have a practice before the all-winners final,  the conversation helps make the journey seem shorter than when travelling alone, especially when he told me he’d been testing his paste in the fish tank and it sent it cloudy……

With today being my birthday, I was hoping for a good draw and a decent day, I had first dip in the coffee tin and pulled out two stuck together, this happened twice more, before at the fourth time of asking, I managed to pick up a single ticket, which put me on 86 on Cary.  Mike pulled out  125 on Campbell, so we managed  two draws that can produce. 19 fishing today, 6 on Cary and 13 on Campbell.

The weather was muggy and overcast, without a breath of wind, so no ripple; that was about the only downer, as I prefer fishing Cary when it has a ripple on it.  I set up two wagglers, one full depth, one shallow, a lead rod to fish pellet on the straight lead and 3 topkits, one to fish banded pellet at 13m, another for meat at 5-6m and a margin rig, as there was a perfect depth for the groundbait approach down to my left.

On the all in I started on the full depth waggler, to no avail, there were some fish moving under the surface, so a switch to the shallow waggler seemed to be the solution, it wasn’t, half an hour in and not a bite on either waggler.  85 was catching the odd fish on the lead, so I tried that, it produced one bite, one fish in the next half an hour.  I had brought a few slices of bread and tried this next, second put in a 14lber had fallen for it, but that was to be the only bite and as I was getting no liners or other indications, I came in on the 13m pole line.  This produced a skimmer, but was equally slow in respect of carp, a hopeful, but not optimistic look on the meat line produced two skimmers, no sign of a carp.

I did managed to tempt one back out on the 13m line, but by the halfway stage I had 3 fish for 30+lbs, not good and I fed the margin, as by now I was a long way behind peg 85, who was keeping fish coming on the lead, he had a large patch of fizzing in front of him, but the fish seemed reluctant to move.  The margin was as devoid of fish as the rest of the peg, so I kept swapping between all the lines in the hope the fish would move in on one or more of them.  I had no one to my left and the diagonal bank was also unoccupied, so the fish had plenty of space to back off into (Cary was pegged 77-86), not sure if that did me any favours.

With an hour and a half to go, I was looking at a proper battering from peg 85, when I saw some fizzing start over the 13m line, I made up a paste rig and dropped some paste in on that line, taking two fish in quick succession, another look into the margin and the float buried, an angry 15lb common was landed, I refed and went back in, float buried again and another double netted, this carried on until the all out, I was broken twice (0.20) by fish from this margin, as they all bolted towards peg 95 when they were hooked.  The final hour had saved my blushes and had it been a final 90 minutes, the rate I was catching I might have stood a chance of the win.  Given that I had 37lb in the net with 1 ¾ of an hour to go, I was reasonably pleased to end up with 146lb and fourth, taking the section money.

Afterwards, Mike told me he had had an accusatory text,  wanting an explanation of what had he put in his misses fish tank……  lol.  He had got off to a flyer on 125, catching well on the lead, but they didn’t keep coming and Campbell fished hard (by it’s exceptional standard) , Mike ending up with 72.10.

1: Jim Morrison  196.08 peg 85
2: Gary Mealing 166.03  peg 77
3: Roy Worth  165.12 peg 80
4: Chris Fox  146.12  peg 86
5: Mark Wynne 139.09 peg 116
6: Phil Cardwell 114.14  peg 119

Silvers
1: Simon Jones   44.02  peg 123
2: Bob Gullick  43.04  peg 112
3: Nigel Bartlett  42.02 peg 78

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