I needed a good result from today’s match, as the first
round was a dropper, so I was first in the draw bucket – at least all the good
pegs are in the tin – first dip in, I picked up two stuck together, dropped
them back. Second attempt another two stuck together, third dip in one seemed
to fly into the palm of my hand….. an omen.
A portent of doom rather than a good omen, as I opened the swimcard to
reveal 55.
Next to me on 56, was Paul Elmes who had been on 55 last
match and won the section from it, but with corner pegs 53 and 59 in and
seeming a plenty of room for Lee Werrit on 62, I wasn’t so convinced that it
would do it again. I set up 4 rigs, one
for the margin down to my left, which looks like it should hold a few fish, a
rig for meat fished out to my No6 section, a pellet rig to fish at 14m and
finally a paste rig that would do for fishing over the pellet line or anywhere
else in the peg, as apart from the margin, the depth varied by little more than
4-6”. I also set up a waggler to fish on
the drop at full depth.
I tried starting on the meat short, sometimes this nicks an
early fish or two, but apart from roach bites, that was a non-starter. A switch to the pellet line feeding 6mm and
fishing a banded 8mm brought a couple of small skimmers, even a switch to 6mm
in the band didn’t encourage more of them.
By now others around the lake were starting to catch, whilst myself and
Paul were struggling.
Coming up to the half way stage of the match, I had managed
a couple more skimmers, one on the waggler, one on the meat, but it was
pitifully slow and as there were signs of carp out by the rope, I decided to
set up a lead rod. I had no bread with
me, so popped up a bit of 10mm meat 6” below the surface, this was desperation plan Z, as myself and
Paul were both finding that casting a waggler towards the fish, saw them back
off tighter to the rope. First two
chucks had me thinking it might work, as I had liners, then that was it, they
had even backed off a 1/4oz bomb dropping in.
At five to three, I saw a bubble or two over the meat line
and in the next half an hour had 3 carp for 34lb, Paul also had a couple of
fish and I thought that we would go on and catch a few, apart from a couple
more skimmers that was my lot. The margin produced a perch and two rudd, all
about 4oz.
With the all-out imminent I had switched over to paste, as
Paul had caught a carp on it over his meat line, I said to Paul hopefully one
will take it on the drop, one did, it was a skimmer about 1lb and that was
enough to beat Paul by 8oz, my carp and skimmers going 47.00, to Pauls 46.08
that was the highlight of the match, as we were well beaten by everyone else in
the section.
Really not sure what else I could have done, the pegs felt
devoid of fish, no idea why they turned up for 30 minutes and then disappeared
again, I had no liners, no foulers, no blowing, nothing to give hope that there
were fish there to be caught for 51/2 hours of the match. I think had I fished for skimmers I could
have had a days fishing, but would have been last in section, as they weren’t
exactly going mad, so there was no point.
That it for the series, treat the rest as opens and hope for a better
draw. I didn’t get the results, but the
weigh sheet pictures are on the Viaduct Facebook page.
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