Tony Rixon's Float Only League, Round One, Viaduct, Sunday 31st May 2015

This is going to be short, as there isn't much to write about.  This really starts on Thursday, when I was discussing this match with Tony and asking if he was putting peg 109 in, as I had a bad feeling that I would draw it, if he did.

I wasn't at all surprised when it came out of the draw tin, disappointed and pissed off yes, surprised no.  When I went to look at the peg, there were a couple of carp showing themselves in the RH margin, as everyone came into the car park and got their gear, slamming car doors etc, the fish moved up the lake and I didn't see a sign of a fish again.

I set up a waggler, but the wind and the trees made it impossible to get it where I wanted it, so up the bank with it after 10 minutes of trying, not to be used again.

I set up 5 topkits, 2 for the edge as the margins were different depths and I wanted to feed GB in one and particles in the other, a meat rig, a pellet rig for 13m towards the willow tree and just in case, a paste rig.

Starting on the meat short, I had a small (for Cary) carp and then a small tench, that apart from a roach, was that for the meat line for the rest of the day, after half an hour I switched to the 13m pellet line, fishing a 8mm pellet over 6mm feed.  Another carp, this one a bit bigger, but still not a 'Barney' and that apart from 4 skimmers proved to be that for the pellet line. I swapped between meat, pellet and both margins, as well as trying paste for the next 4 hours and had one carp at about 2pm from the LH margin at 14.5m.

That was the sole action until 25 minutes before the all out, when I had 2 more carp, lost a fouler and lost one that got snagged in something under the willow tree.  I had landed plenty of sticks, twigs and other various bits of foliage, but the peg seemed to be fairly devoid of fish, the RH margin produced 2 perch and the ducks mopped the rest of the bait up.

My fish went 44lb for a section win, so some consolation for 6 hours of intense effort.  But once again, I found myself in the worst section, an ongoing theme since my days of team fishing in the 70's and 80's.... 

I didn't get the results, but Tony won from 114, with 176lb, Trigger 2nd from 96 with 175lb and Glenn Calvert top silvers with 38lb.  See Tony's blog for full result.