Viaduct Open Sunday 23rd October 2016

Had several options today, but chose Viaduct and I took bait to fish for carp and silvers, although I would chose which when I drew, as I felt it was not going to be viable to fish for both.  Only 15 for this one, must be winter, as any summer Sunday match on Campbell would be sold out.

For the second day running I drew a peg I wouldn't have chosen, 129, but there was plenty of space as I only had the amiable Mr Roberts on 131 for company between me and the end bank.  The wind was ripping up the lake and was going to make pole and waggler fishing difficult, but ever hopeful that the wind would abate at some point, I set up a waggler and 3 pole rigs.  A meat rig, one to fish pellet at 14m and a rig to fish to the spit, which had a depth of nearly 2' and I did think that there might be a fish or two to be had from there.

Starting on the lead, I gave it 20 minutes before the brain fade set in and I had to look at a float, the pole was equally ineffective and the wind was making waggler fishing tricky, but but putting an 8mm pellet 4" overdepth it would hold still.  After 3/4 of an hour I had a bite and landed a near 4lb carp, Fred had one at exactly the same time.  I had a couple of liners at the time, but that was it until just before 14.00 when I had a 3lb tench on the waggler.  14.00 was the half way point and Steve Hutter walked up and Fred walked down to my peg, as we were all struggling, whilst 123, 114 and 118 were catching.

Fred and I decided that a halftime coffee and pasty would be good and provide some fresh impetus for the second half of the match, so a stroll up the shop was in order, we weren't alone, we were soon joined by John Bradford and Sean Clayton, both were equally struggling, with Sean being especially frustrated, being next to 114 who was sacking, whilst he struggled.

The second half if the match started well, before I had finished my coffee, the waggler dipped and a beautifully conditioned 10lb common was netted after a spirited tussle, the fish might have been cold and going into winter mode, but still fighting like summer fish.  The spit produced nothing, I had fed maggots sparingly and a couple of cubes of meat, but I don't think there was anything there.

I had fed a meat line at 7m all day and did catch a perch and one carp from it, but the most indications were on the waggler, cast close to the aerator.  I lost two foulers and had a few indications, but these came in spells, the fish seemed to be moving through the peg in small groups and I had 3 more carp during these spells of activity.  I'm not sure if it was a small shoal of carp circling round or if it was carp moving from the shallow water at this end of the lake moving towards the deeper water.

Ended up with 46.05 and was a long, long way from the top 3, not really sure that I could have done much more, maybe fishing the waggler all day, but the wind was making feeding 8mm pellets tricky.