Foxy's Two Dayer, Viaduct Fri/Sat 4th/5th September 2020

 This was the fourth year of this two dayer, which has retained the same format of fishing Cary and Campbell, with Campbell being pole only.  Initially I had it on points, but I felt that too many were out of it after day one, so last year switched it to total weight and kept that for this year.  It's a friendly affair with some good banter and very little moaning, its also a serious match with a chance to pick up decent money (£2060 paid out).

A big thanks to Steve, Helen & Matt at Viaduct, for hosting and ensuring all were kept happy, thanks to all who fished and supported the match, not exactly sure what's happening next year, I have Campbell booked, but as it stands Cary isn't going to used for matches, but fingers crossed that will be reviewed.  

36 fishing, day one is an open draw, day two separate draws for each lake, as you fish the other lake than the one you fished.  I got Matt to draw for me and he drew out 80, probably the shallowest peg on the lake and a little unknown as Cary has not been match fished apart from a couple of the holiday lodge bookings.  Consensus generally was that Cary would be better on day two, after they'd seen some bait on the pole lines, instead of the spodding of many kilos of particles into the middle. 

A waggler, set to full depth with no shot down the line, a lead rod, a rig to fish up the spit at 14.5m, a pellet rig shallow and deep and a meat rig for short, although I wasn't expecting that to be hugely productive due to the aforementioned shallowness of the peg.

I started on the lead, an 8mm pellet on a 12QM1, with a teabag of 6mm pellets.  I had walked round to remind everyone of the net limits (at Viaduct if you go over 70lb, you lose all nets....) and hadn't settled in and got evertything ready as I would usually, I realised as I was casting that I'd put the teabag on, but no hookbait...  So straight back in and the bag had mostly dissolved by the time I got it back to hand.

Second cast with a new bag and a hookbait, 10 minutes in the tip went round and after a battle, I netted a fish that was a big teen, probably not far off 20lb, stayed with it for an hour and had two more carp and two skimmers.

A switch to the waggler saw me net another, before one took me round the end of the spit, parting the hooklength as it did so.

I had a look up the spit and hooked a decent fish, it swam out into the open water and then the line parted, bit surprising, as it was a freshly tied rig and new hooklength,  the line was slightly damaged halfway down the rig where it parted, I can only think that the line went of a sharp, jagged fin on he fish.

I had a skimmer and a stockie carp from the spit before the bites dried up.  I had another look on the waggler and all that produced was a skimmer, there were a few bubbles on the short line where I'd been throwing 8mm meat.  I was hopeful a big carp was mooching round there, but it was skimmers, decent skimmers and it was weight going in the net.

I did have another look on the lead, to no avail, I was hoping the spit would come good an I did have a decent fish and 3 more stockies off it but it didn't produce as I hoped it might.

The scales gave me 136.03, second on the lake behind Phil Moris who made no mistake from the fancied peg 81, the other side of the spit from me.

Yellow denotes Campbell, Blue Cary.

Onto day two and plenty of us in with a shout, plenty of speculation about how Cary would fish, with Nick Ewers and Dan White drawing reasonably.

I was going to get Matt to draw for me again, but he wasn't around, so I passed the tin to Gary O'Shea and was somewhat deflated when he handed me 124, it wasn't good yesterday and Phil Morris ended up on 123, so the top two on Cary yesterday, ended up on the worst two pegs from day 1 on Campbell....  Still its a different day and maybe with a little breeze on the fish may have moved round.

Pole only, so nice and easy to set up, with the rods at home in the garage.  Rig for up to the empty pallet of 125, meat short, pellet up and down long and a lighter rig to fish pellet, should it be as hard as I feared.

My usual start short on meat brought that early double figure mug fish that often comes along, then a skimmer, before all indications stopped.  I could see Andy Lloyd on 126 catching odd fish shallow, so I went out long, but had no ripple, so wasn't surprised to see no action shallow, one skimmer and one carp at depth, but it was far from hectic action.  I was just trying to put something in the net, so got off my box to grab some groundbait and I fed this with some corn.  Two skimmers, but it was slow, so I put another ball in with maggots and this seemed to liven things up, as I had two carp and a few skimmers on it.

I was hoping th big fish that can show up in these pegs would be down by the pallet of 125 in the last couple of hours, Andy Lloyd had switched to fishing the edge and was catching well, just down to his left, I had a couple from the margin, but Andy was catching 4 or 5 to my 1.  Corn on the hook was better, but I then got invaded with roach and had to go back to 8mm pellet.

I'd been feeding the 5m meat line and hadn't seen the usual bubble or swirl that indicates the fish are there, so I left until the last 25 minutes, that was a mistake, as I had a decent skimmer or a carp every put in in that 25 minutes spell, had I had a last hour at it, I may just have made up enough ground to sneak into the frame.

I put 155.03 onto the scales and I am sure it could have been more, stubbornly expecting the margin to produce, beat Phil to my left, but was well and truly battered by Andy who won the lake.

Again, yellow denotes Campbell, blue Cary.

Overall Nick Ewers took the victory, well done Nick, with Dan White pressing hard behind.  The overall payout below does not include daily lake/section money or superpool, so some went home with a nice pick up.

Finally, didn't hear any moans, I hope everyone enjoyed it, even if some of the pegs didn't quite produce as well as others and hope to see as many of you as possible again next year.