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.

I fancied my peg for a few skimmers, but mindful of it being a team match I vowed to fish it to gain as many section points as possible, I set up two lead rods, one for popped up bread and one for meat or corn.  Two waggler rods, one with 4lb reel line and a 0.14 hooklength with a 16 LWG hook, the other with 2 1/2lb reel line, 0.10 hooklength and a 18 6313.

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.