Best get this one over with.......
Nice and early to the fishery and getting the team pools paid, Glenn's turn to draw today and he did fairly well, putting himself on 43, Fred on 5, Me on 113, Mike on 79 and Paul on 73. 113 was certainly in the right area and I was going to base today's approach on rod and line, as 113 is about 6m set back from the pegs either side, which housed competent anglers, Mikey Williams on 112 and Tony Rixon on 114.
Two lead rods set up, one fairly standard set up and one I was trying for popping up bread, using some fluorocarbon and mono combined, A waggler, not much point in fishing too fine, so 4lb reel line and 0.14 hooklength to a 16 LWG. Plenty of time available, so I did set up 3 topkits, all of which remained unused apart from a very short, fruitless look down the LH edge.
I started on the trial pop up rig and in the first hour I had 4 fish, I had a few liners as well, but decided to have a look on the waggler to see if that would speed things up, Tony was in front of me by now and Mikey was struggling. Not sure if the volume of the Wesh lads banter had pushed the fish across the lake, but I was having to chuck the full 1/2 way over to get bites. The waggler resulted in two foulers on corn, both of which came off, so back on the lead. I tried meat and corn on the lead to no avail.
Back on the bread, this time on the standard lead set up, so I could adjust the pop up height, this produced a couple more fish, but I felt the waggler would be best, so back on it and another fouler. I pushed the 2 No8's up under the float, so just had a size 24 swivel down the line , This started to bring fish on triple maggot and I got to 65lb on my clicker, so put another net in. I basically fished the day out on the waggler, having to set it up again after a large fouler snagged me in front of Mikey and I lost the lot.
In the last hour, Tony and Mikey both started catching me up, as they were getting fish at 16m on the pole, I did try catapulting some meat at just over 20m (which was their 16m line), no bites on this. The only two baits I caught on were bread and maggot. My second net was clicked at 51lb when my clicker dived off the side tray and straight into the lake.... I only had on other fish after and that was about 3lb, so I though there was 54lb in the net.
I thought I had between 110lb and 120lb, which should be enough to win the lake, my second net was weighed first, 57.07 so not to far out with the clicker, the first net, had over 65lb in when I lifted it out and I was hoping it was under 80lb, no such luck, 82lb and the net was disqualified. Not sure how I was 4lb out on one net clicking it and 17lb on the other, I am sure I didn't put a fish in it after I put the second net in. Frustrating to have done that, I have gone over 70lb a couple of times before, but never had a net disqualified,
On a personal note it was disappointing to lose the match win and the payout that goes with it and on a team front, I was lucky that the 57.07 still gave me fourth on the lake, so three points dropped. That did mean that we were 3rd on the day, instead of second and the final cost, if any, will be revealed next week. It also cost me in the overall individual standing, where I am 6th and could be joint second.
Top Weights On The Day:
1. Ryan Shipp - 99lb 4oz - peg 85
2. Mike Williams - 88lb 1oz - peg 112
3. Gary O'Shea - 82lb 12oz - peg 86
4. Tony Rixon - 78lb 10oz - peg 114
5. Lewis Walker - 76lb 12oz - peg 51
6. Ivan Oakey - 74lb 4oz - peg 96
Top Silver Weights On The Day:
1. Mark Poppleton - 25lb 1oz - peg 110
2. Simon Hebditch - 20lb 2oz - peg 11
3. Nick Chedzoy - 15lb - peg 10
4. Andy Power - 14lb 4oz - peg 42
5. Dave Roper - 13lb 12oz - peg 9
6. Steve Denmead - 11lb 10oz - peg 13
Top teams on the day:
1. PI Thatchers Gold - 72
2. South West Nomads - 63
3. 2nd Time Lucky - 61
4. Thatchers Vets - 59
5. Viaduct All Stars - 58
6. Thatchers Welsh Wizards - 57
6. Frenzee Black - 57
8. Amigos - 56
9. Viaduct - 55
10. Premier Angling - 54
11. Frenzee Orange - 49
12. Garbolino BVMG - 47
13. Somerset Angling - 45
14. Viaduct Select - 42
15. Avon Angling - 41
16. Maver - 39
17. Moaning Maggots - 37
18. Silverfox - 33
19. Keyford - 25
Overall Teams:
1. Viaduct All Stars - 248
2. 2nd Time Lucky - 243
3. PI Thatchers Gold - 239
4, Frenzee Black - 231
5. Premier Angling - 230
6. South West Nomads - 223
7. Frenzee Orange - 216
8. Viaduct - 212
9. Somerset Angling - 206
10. Avon Angling - 205
11. Thatchers Vets - 204
12. Thatchers Welsh Wizzards - 188
13. Keyford - 187
14. Moaning Maggots - 184
15. Silverfox - 177
16. Maver - 166
17. Amigos - 164
18. Viaduct Select - 149
19. Garbolino BVMG - 135
Individual Points So Far:
1. Phil Harding - 64
2. Des Shipp - 62
3. Alan Oram - 61
3. Mark Brennan - 61
3. Fred Roberts - 61
6. Chris Fox - 59
Sunday, 28 February 2016
Monday, 22 February 2016
Ivy House Winter League, Final Round, Sunday 21st February 2015
Another windy day greeted me as I struggled from under the covers, working 6 days a week at the moment and having Sundays enjoyment spoiled by the bloody wind, I wish it would bugger off, I'd rather have a cold, clear frosty morning.
No floods to negotiate this week, as the Avon at Christian Malford was well back within its banks, so a trouble free drive to the fishery, where I was greeted with a drooling Clint..... you'll have to ask him about it!!
I managed to end up near the back of the draw queue, I'd rather be at the front and the much needed section win was looking unlikely when I drew unfancied 26 on the road bank, initially I thought that the wind was straight behind me, so it wouldn't be too bad, but it wasn't, so not even that in my favour. I did have the feature of an aerator to chuck to and an empty peg either side, so perhaps all wasn't lost.
I certainly can't claim to have sussed Ivy House out, so ended up with 2 lead rods, 2 wagglers and 4 topkits set up, one of the lead rods had the smallest Guru pellet feeder on it, the other a straight lead. The wagglers were a straight Middy clear 4g model, these cast and fish really well, the best plastic wagglers I have used, the other a Drennan Glowtip for a bit more sensitivity, these remind me of the old stillwater blues. Topkits were a no nonsense rig, 4 No8 single bulk, 0.20/0.18 to a 16 Guru super strong hook, just in case the fish would venture into the shallow water in the corner, a 0.4g float to fish at 14.5m with maggot, another to fish in slightly shallower water off to the LH side at 14m and a silvers rig, 0.2g with a 18 gamma green on 0.09 to fish at 6m.
It was a slow start, nobody catching, I tried popped up bread, it has caught me fish here, but only on one occasion, so I only gave it 15 minutes. Then tried pellet and a couple of different colour band um's with the pellet feeder, all to no avail, before deciding that the bait that has caught me virtually all of my fish this series, maggots, would once again be my best bet. The 14.5 and 14m lines were tried, with maggot and also soft pellet over micros, but these were as seemingly devoid of fish as the lead lines. Time to switch to the waggler, fishing double floating maggot, with only a couple of No10's down the line, this brought an immediate response, in the form of a small skimmer. That remained my only skimmer, why, when the place is full of them, are they so difficult to catch in the winter.
Sticking with the waggler a couple of small perch and roach were the next to take the slow sinking maggots, before a quick bite was met with a more solid resistance on the strike, a welcome carp, but only about 7lb, two chucks later, another carp, this one about 3lb and that was to be it for the carp, no more on the waggler. The 6m line was producing roach, but small ones and having seen peg 21 land a couple of big carp, I needed to try and get some more, 1oz roach were never going to build the section winning weight.
I tried the line I'd been feeding with maggot in about 3' of water down towards peg 27, second time I tried it the float dipped and I was attached to a large fish that wallowed in towards the waiting landing net, before seemingly realising it was hooked. I think it was foul hooked and after a lengthy tussle, the hook pulled, I wasn't sure if that would be costly or not.
That kept me fishing that line with only roach to show for it too long, as had I switched back to the 6m, I may well have taken second in section, rather than the third I managed, peg 21 weighed 3 or 4 carp for 45lb, peg 32 had 13.12 of silvers and I weighed 13.04, 10 minutes on the roach would have clawed that back.
As it happens, my 3 points was just low enough to take 5th and final place in the money on the overall standings, with a series total of 15 points, Andy Lloyd also having 15 points, but beating me on weight 209lb to 160lb. It was a tough series, some enjoyable moments and some frustrating ones, partly caused by the weather, partly by making incorrect decisions on my part.
Thanks to Andy and Karen, there was a selection of sandwiches, cakes and other snacks laid on at the end (and I've never seen anyone eat 4 slices of cake before Leon....) best wishes in your next ventures after leaving Ivy House, I hope the new owners are as welcoming.
Overall winner was Vince Shipp, well done to him.
No floods to negotiate this week, as the Avon at Christian Malford was well back within its banks, so a trouble free drive to the fishery, where I was greeted with a drooling Clint..... you'll have to ask him about it!!
I managed to end up near the back of the draw queue, I'd rather be at the front and the much needed section win was looking unlikely when I drew unfancied 26 on the road bank, initially I thought that the wind was straight behind me, so it wouldn't be too bad, but it wasn't, so not even that in my favour. I did have the feature of an aerator to chuck to and an empty peg either side, so perhaps all wasn't lost.
I certainly can't claim to have sussed Ivy House out, so ended up with 2 lead rods, 2 wagglers and 4 topkits set up, one of the lead rods had the smallest Guru pellet feeder on it, the other a straight lead. The wagglers were a straight Middy clear 4g model, these cast and fish really well, the best plastic wagglers I have used, the other a Drennan Glowtip for a bit more sensitivity, these remind me of the old stillwater blues. Topkits were a no nonsense rig, 4 No8 single bulk, 0.20/0.18 to a 16 Guru super strong hook, just in case the fish would venture into the shallow water in the corner, a 0.4g float to fish at 14.5m with maggot, another to fish in slightly shallower water off to the LH side at 14m and a silvers rig, 0.2g with a 18 gamma green on 0.09 to fish at 6m.
It was a slow start, nobody catching, I tried popped up bread, it has caught me fish here, but only on one occasion, so I only gave it 15 minutes. Then tried pellet and a couple of different colour band um's with the pellet feeder, all to no avail, before deciding that the bait that has caught me virtually all of my fish this series, maggots, would once again be my best bet. The 14.5 and 14m lines were tried, with maggot and also soft pellet over micros, but these were as seemingly devoid of fish as the lead lines. Time to switch to the waggler, fishing double floating maggot, with only a couple of No10's down the line, this brought an immediate response, in the form of a small skimmer. That remained my only skimmer, why, when the place is full of them, are they so difficult to catch in the winter.
Sticking with the waggler a couple of small perch and roach were the next to take the slow sinking maggots, before a quick bite was met with a more solid resistance on the strike, a welcome carp, but only about 7lb, two chucks later, another carp, this one about 3lb and that was to be it for the carp, no more on the waggler. The 6m line was producing roach, but small ones and having seen peg 21 land a couple of big carp, I needed to try and get some more, 1oz roach were never going to build the section winning weight.
I tried the line I'd been feeding with maggot in about 3' of water down towards peg 27, second time I tried it the float dipped and I was attached to a large fish that wallowed in towards the waiting landing net, before seemingly realising it was hooked. I think it was foul hooked and after a lengthy tussle, the hook pulled, I wasn't sure if that would be costly or not.
That kept me fishing that line with only roach to show for it too long, as had I switched back to the 6m, I may well have taken second in section, rather than the third I managed, peg 21 weighed 3 or 4 carp for 45lb, peg 32 had 13.12 of silvers and I weighed 13.04, 10 minutes on the roach would have clawed that back.
As it happens, my 3 points was just low enough to take 5th and final place in the money on the overall standings, with a series total of 15 points, Andy Lloyd also having 15 points, but beating me on weight 209lb to 160lb. It was a tough series, some enjoyable moments and some frustrating ones, partly caused by the weather, partly by making incorrect decisions on my part.
Thanks to Andy and Karen, there was a selection of sandwiches, cakes and other snacks laid on at the end (and I've never seen anyone eat 4 slices of cake before Leon....) best wishes in your next ventures after leaving Ivy House, I hope the new owners are as welcoming.
Overall winner was Vince Shipp, well done to him.
Sunday, 14 February 2016
Viaduct Winter League, Round Three, Sunday 14th February
Really good drive down to the fishery today, only two Sunday dawdler's and they were on straight stretches where I could pass and stay stress free!!
It was Freddo's turn to pluck the team an quintet of flyers from Viaduct's trusty coffee tin, not sure he quite managed it, but we'll blame the frosty weather earlier in the week and the cold easterly wind for the carp being holed up and not venturing out for a munch.
Fred managed to put Mike on 126, Paul on 94, Glenn on 62, himself on 46 and me on 15, so a mixed bag for the team. I had really fancied an island chuck, but it wasn't to be and whilst 15 has a reasonably deep edge down to a tree in the water, the water clarity didn't give me too much hope that that would yield much.
Peg 15 looking towards the genial Adrian Jeffery, who spent some time fishing in a tree.........
The straight ahead view of 15
With the guys on the river Cary bank being quite close, there isn't much of a lead chuck on this peg, so I only set up one lead rod and it only wetted the the line for the first 5 or 6 minutes, so no more about that. My neighbour Jason Radford on peg 16 had a coveted island chuck and only set up a lead rod, he has more confidence in it than I do......
I also set up a couple of waggler rods, but once the all-in was called, the wind got up and as well as causing several outbreaks of Tourettes, it was pushing the waggler through, with no real tow to hold it still.
So that left the pole, 4 rigs set up, a more in hope than expectation, margin rig, a double bulk rig, with 6" of line on the bottom because of the wind, a .2 rig to fish through the water and a .3 rig on 0.20 and a 0.18 hooklength, just in case the carp showed up towards the end.
Bait tray consisted of casters, dead maggots and pinkies, live maggots, corn and meat, I did have some bread, but given the limited lead chuck, the ducks enjoyed that at the end of the match. I haven't caught much over groundbait the last couple of matches, but did mix some up and fed a line at about 1 o'clock. The other line at 11 o'clock I fed with caster, expecting to catch on it, as Jason was fishing a long chuck to the island, leaving that water to me.
Fishing has a habit of upending your thinking and today it didn't fail, the caster line was pretty much dead and the GB line started producing skimmers from 6oz to 1lb. I had to regularly top the GB to keep catching and I did get one or two fish over the caster line, but on maggot, I only had one fish on caster all day.
The middle of the match went a bit quiet, I was pretty convinced the fish were coming up off the bottom as I had a couple of bites on the drop, but the wind made it impossible to fish the light rig through the water, so I had a try on the waggler, managing one decent skimmer on it, before going back to the double bulk rig which produced virtually all of my fish.
I did introduce a few bits of 6mm meat over the caster line, hoping for a carp or the bigger bream that Chris Davies was catching on peg 17, but apart from 4 or 5 missed bites and one bumped fish (could well have been a liner) that line remained stubbornly difficult. had it been an individual match I would have turned it into a GB line earlier, but was still holding out the hope of a late carp.
I also tried the margin on and off and with about half an hour to go, I had my only bite down there, the float twitched and then buried, a classic carp bite, but no, an unseasonal 8oz rudd was unceremoniously hauled in on orange Vespe and 0.20.
The last 15 minutes over the GB were frustrating as tiny roach had switched on, meaning that the maggot tipped with fluoro pinkie that had accounted for 95% of my fish became an instant target for them and I sat the last 10 minutes out with 6mm meat on the hook.
My Skimmers went 29.13, enough to score 14/19 points, beaten by 4 island pegs and peg8, quite why the fish were sat in that corner and not the corner me and Adrian were trying to lure them from, I have no idea.
Team wise we had our lowest finish, 8th on the day, but given the way the results of the other teams fell, we managed to climb a place to second overall. Really looking forward to the next round now, when I shall be on Campbell. And Jason's confidence in setting up one lead rod and nothing else paid off, as he ended up with 67lb all caught to the island.
1: Ivan Oakey peg113 152.02
2: Chris Jones peg 114 145.03
3: Marc Jones peg 85 112.09
4: Mark Harper peg 102 105.11
5: Mash peg 53 100.02
6: Steve Seager peg 115 97.09
Silver's
1: Chris Davis peg 17 38.01
2: Chris Fox peg 15 29.13.
It was Freddo's turn to pluck the team an quintet of flyers from Viaduct's trusty coffee tin, not sure he quite managed it, but we'll blame the frosty weather earlier in the week and the cold easterly wind for the carp being holed up and not venturing out for a munch.
Fred managed to put Mike on 126, Paul on 94, Glenn on 62, himself on 46 and me on 15, so a mixed bag for the team. I had really fancied an island chuck, but it wasn't to be and whilst 15 has a reasonably deep edge down to a tree in the water, the water clarity didn't give me too much hope that that would yield much.
Peg 15 looking towards the genial Adrian Jeffery, who spent some time fishing in a tree.........
The straight ahead view of 15
With the guys on the river Cary bank being quite close, there isn't much of a lead chuck on this peg, so I only set up one lead rod and it only wetted the the line for the first 5 or 6 minutes, so no more about that. My neighbour Jason Radford on peg 16 had a coveted island chuck and only set up a lead rod, he has more confidence in it than I do......
I also set up a couple of waggler rods, but once the all-in was called, the wind got up and as well as causing several outbreaks of Tourettes, it was pushing the waggler through, with no real tow to hold it still.
So that left the pole, 4 rigs set up, a more in hope than expectation, margin rig, a double bulk rig, with 6" of line on the bottom because of the wind, a .2 rig to fish through the water and a .3 rig on 0.20 and a 0.18 hooklength, just in case the carp showed up towards the end.
Bait tray consisted of casters, dead maggots and pinkies, live maggots, corn and meat, I did have some bread, but given the limited lead chuck, the ducks enjoyed that at the end of the match. I haven't caught much over groundbait the last couple of matches, but did mix some up and fed a line at about 1 o'clock. The other line at 11 o'clock I fed with caster, expecting to catch on it, as Jason was fishing a long chuck to the island, leaving that water to me.
Fishing has a habit of upending your thinking and today it didn't fail, the caster line was pretty much dead and the GB line started producing skimmers from 6oz to 1lb. I had to regularly top the GB to keep catching and I did get one or two fish over the caster line, but on maggot, I only had one fish on caster all day.
The middle of the match went a bit quiet, I was pretty convinced the fish were coming up off the bottom as I had a couple of bites on the drop, but the wind made it impossible to fish the light rig through the water, so I had a try on the waggler, managing one decent skimmer on it, before going back to the double bulk rig which produced virtually all of my fish.
I did introduce a few bits of 6mm meat over the caster line, hoping for a carp or the bigger bream that Chris Davies was catching on peg 17, but apart from 4 or 5 missed bites and one bumped fish (could well have been a liner) that line remained stubbornly difficult. had it been an individual match I would have turned it into a GB line earlier, but was still holding out the hope of a late carp.
I also tried the margin on and off and with about half an hour to go, I had my only bite down there, the float twitched and then buried, a classic carp bite, but no, an unseasonal 8oz rudd was unceremoniously hauled in on orange Vespe and 0.20.
The last 15 minutes over the GB were frustrating as tiny roach had switched on, meaning that the maggot tipped with fluoro pinkie that had accounted for 95% of my fish became an instant target for them and I sat the last 10 minutes out with 6mm meat on the hook.
My Skimmers went 29.13, enough to score 14/19 points, beaten by 4 island pegs and peg8, quite why the fish were sat in that corner and not the corner me and Adrian were trying to lure them from, I have no idea.
Team wise we had our lowest finish, 8th on the day, but given the way the results of the other teams fell, we managed to climb a place to second overall. Really looking forward to the next round now, when I shall be on Campbell. And Jason's confidence in setting up one lead rod and nothing else paid off, as he ended up with 67lb all caught to the island.
1: Ivan Oakey peg113 152.02
2: Chris Jones peg 114 145.03
3: Marc Jones peg 85 112.09
4: Mark Harper peg 102 105.11
5: Mash peg 53 100.02
6: Steve Seager peg 115 97.09
Silver's
1: Chris Davis peg 17 38.01
2: Chris Fox peg 15 29.13.
Sunday, 7 February 2016
Ivy House Winter League, Penultimate Round, Sunday 7th February 2016
Pissing down rain and wind on the M32 / M4, great start to the day, but after having worked for 6 days and with a further 6 days work following, I was determined to enjoy it..... Not convinced I actually achieved that though!!
At Christian Malford I stopped to take a picture of the Avon, it had burst it's banks, flooded the fields and was about 12" deep across the road for a couple of hundred yards, the Chippenham side of the bridge.
The sign outside of Ivy House has changed from For Sale, to Under Offer and the new owners were there this morning, cooking breakfast alongside Karen and then assisting with the weigh in, didn't get chance to find out their plans, but they seemed keen to learn about the match organisation.
Into the coffee tin and out comes 38, second in section last match and an area where the fish have been, but today (and my picture does not do the wind justice) it, along with peg 40, was the windiest part of the lake, with a strong, gusting side wind. A couple of guys were moaning about having the wind in their face, I'd rather that than side on.
I did set up two lead rods given the wind, one with a tiny pellet feeder and a straight lead, as I had time I got a waggler rod out, although it was a pointless exercise unless I could find some tow back against the wind. 3 topkits, one with a Hillbilly Dweezil in 0.75g, these are a really stable float in choppy conditions, another with a 0.6g NG Gimp and a margin rig, as there was a nice depth just over 2 1/2' on the RH side and the lake had a reasonable colour.
The most pole I could hold and that was with some effort and a genuine risk of breakage, was 11m, although 7m was realistic, but this was on a slope. I fed a line just short of 11m with maggot and another at about 8m with GB, pinkie and squatt. Started on the pellet feeder, nothing, switched to straight lead, nothing, the pole line fed with maggot, nothing...... and it doesn't get too much better from here on in. I did start to catch small roach over the GB, but then the guy to my left had a carp (or so I thought) on the lead and I thought catching roach wouldn't get me the points I needed.
Swapping between the lead, a frustrating attempt to fish the waggler, using every trick I know to hold it in place - which failed, as I could not find any trip against the wind - and the pole, I searched the peg for a carp, but there was no liners, no bites, no sign of one. I was getting more and more pissed off with the wind, especially looking over and seeing some parts of the lake becalmed!!
Shouting and swearing at the wind like some old city center wino abusing pigeons, didn't make it stop, in fact it got worse. I did snare a big skimmer on 3 dead maggots in one of the 3 second spells the pole wasn't being blown into a shape never intended by the Daiwa designers.
Come the all out, I was thinking that it would be a close call if asked to repeat the day or go for protracted root canal work.... Another frustration, the 'carp' I saw being landed on the next peg was a foul hooked bream on a pop up rig, if I had stayed fishing for roach, I should have easily caught enough to be second in section, instead of the third place I ended up with, weighing 4.02 to Andy Weston's 5.14 with his 'carp' that wasn't. 26lb won the section from the corner peg 44, which was 4 carp.
Seems my little run of drawing decent pegs has come to a sudden end, as I return to being in the worst section!! Nothing but a section win and a couple of anglers having a shocker will see me pick up in the league, as I am currently 6th.
At Christian Malford I stopped to take a picture of the Avon, it had burst it's banks, flooded the fields and was about 12" deep across the road for a couple of hundred yards, the Chippenham side of the bridge.
Into the coffee tin and out comes 38, second in section last match and an area where the fish have been, but today (and my picture does not do the wind justice) it, along with peg 40, was the windiest part of the lake, with a strong, gusting side wind. A couple of guys were moaning about having the wind in their face, I'd rather that than side on.
I did set up two lead rods given the wind, one with a tiny pellet feeder and a straight lead, as I had time I got a waggler rod out, although it was a pointless exercise unless I could find some tow back against the wind. 3 topkits, one with a Hillbilly Dweezil in 0.75g, these are a really stable float in choppy conditions, another with a 0.6g NG Gimp and a margin rig, as there was a nice depth just over 2 1/2' on the RH side and the lake had a reasonable colour.
The most pole I could hold and that was with some effort and a genuine risk of breakage, was 11m, although 7m was realistic, but this was on a slope. I fed a line just short of 11m with maggot and another at about 8m with GB, pinkie and squatt. Started on the pellet feeder, nothing, switched to straight lead, nothing, the pole line fed with maggot, nothing...... and it doesn't get too much better from here on in. I did start to catch small roach over the GB, but then the guy to my left had a carp (or so I thought) on the lead and I thought catching roach wouldn't get me the points I needed.
Swapping between the lead, a frustrating attempt to fish the waggler, using every trick I know to hold it in place - which failed, as I could not find any trip against the wind - and the pole, I searched the peg for a carp, but there was no liners, no bites, no sign of one. I was getting more and more pissed off with the wind, especially looking over and seeing some parts of the lake becalmed!!
Shouting and swearing at the wind like some old city center wino abusing pigeons, didn't make it stop, in fact it got worse. I did snare a big skimmer on 3 dead maggots in one of the 3 second spells the pole wasn't being blown into a shape never intended by the Daiwa designers.
Come the all out, I was thinking that it would be a close call if asked to repeat the day or go for protracted root canal work.... Another frustration, the 'carp' I saw being landed on the next peg was a foul hooked bream on a pop up rig, if I had stayed fishing for roach, I should have easily caught enough to be second in section, instead of the third place I ended up with, weighing 4.02 to Andy Weston's 5.14 with his 'carp' that wasn't. 26lb won the section from the corner peg 44, which was 4 carp.
Seems my little run of drawing decent pegs has come to a sudden end, as I return to being in the worst section!! Nothing but a section win and a couple of anglers having a shocker will see me pick up in the league, as I am currently 6th.
Monday, 1 February 2016
Viaduct Winter League, Round Two. Sunday 31st January 2016
With the weather staying mild I was looking forward to round
2 of this popular winter league, it was my turn to be in the section that
includes, Match, Middle and Spring, I like Match lake and wouldn’t be
disappointed with a draw on there, but there is always the chance of big fish
on Spring and Middle.
With the team taking it in turns to do the draw, it was Mike
Walker who stepped up to the plate (or coffee tin) this week and handed us a
draw we had last year and bombed out from, Paul on 118, Glenn on 85, Fred on
56, Myself on 24 (on Spring) and Mike put himself on the unfavoured peg 9.
Plumbing up the pole lines, I found about 6” more depth
directly in front of me, than off to the sides at 10 and 2 o’clock. This saw me setting up 3 rigs to cover this,
two to fish the deeper water, both the same float, a Hillbilly Chump 0.2g, but
one on 0.16 with a 0.10 hooklength and a 18 6313, the other with 0.20 line,
0.18 hooklength and a 16 Guru extra strong spade hook. A similar light rig to fish at 10 o’clock
where I would feed GB and a margin rig completed the tackle set up.
Ready before the start, I wandered to the next peg and had
a bit of banter with Calum Craig, before
settling down ready for the all-in. On
the all-in I started by casting popped up bread to the tree that overhangs the
end of the island, it only took a couple of minutes for the tip to curl round,
but instead of the ‘Barny Rubble’ carp I wanted, it was a skimmer, second cast
a couple of liners and another skimmer.
I then fed the pole lines, GB/caster/dead maggot and a couple of grains
of corn at 10 o’clock and meat straight in front, both at 14m.
Then out with the waggler and corn, starting on the heavier
gear, as the fish run big in this lake.
A couple of skimmers on the waggler, before a welcome carp, which was
just into double figures. I then hooked
a much bigger carp, it was obviously fouled, but I managed to get it under the
rod tip after a lengthy battle, I could see it was tail hooked, I estimate it
to be 25lb and try as I might, I couldn’t get the net under its head whilst
keeping its tail under water. (I couldn’t even see its head, it was so long). I
finally had to try and get it higher in the water and this meant getting its
tail out of the water, that’s when it shook its tail and neatly flicked the
hook out………. I didn’t swear too much.
I persevered with the waggler a bit longer, but just had the
odd skimmer on corn, no further signs of carp.
A tried the GB line and only had two skimmers from that, the meat line
produced a few skimmers before it went quiet, I refed both pole lines and went
back on the waggler, a couple more skimmers and a fouler that took off and shed
the hook within seconds were all I had to show for it. I had been feeding two
margin lines, one to my left hand side under the tree and to my right, as far
as I could go away from myself, LH side was devoid of fish, the RH line
produced one roach.
I switched back to the meat line, this time with the heavy
rig, as it was going into the last hour of the match and was rewarded with a
run of decent skimmers, before it went quiet again, but I had seen a very ‘carpy’
looking patch of bubbles about 4’ to the right of my float, I waited and the
float buried, a welcome carp about 9lb was netted. I refed and started to catch good skimmers
again and with 15 seconds to go, lifted into a positive bite and felt the solid
weight of a big carp, after a nerve wracking battle, I netted it 10 minutes
after the all-out and that boosted my weight by nearly 20lbs.
So a great days
fishing and I thought I had over 50lb, which given that last match 20lbs was a
decent weight for team points, I was happy with that, even happier when the scales
gave me 62.09, including 21.10 of skimmers.
That was enough for second on the lake and fifth in the silvers, keeping
the nice run of pick ups going. Fred
also managed a second on his lake and with decent back up points from the
others we managed second on the day as well. That leaves us in third place
after two matches, a huge improvement on last years efforts.
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