13/10/13 - Viaduct - Cary

Weight - 85lb 12oz (11lb 12oz - silvers)
Catch - 7 Carp, 14 Skimmers, 2 Perch, 1 Hybrid, 1 Roach
Weather - Rain, but light winds
Match - Wests Tackle Open - 7th out of 19 (1st - silvers)

When I originally booked into this match the weather forecast was for a cloudy day with light winds, but as the weekend got closer, rain was forecast. And it certainly rained.

 

Steve asked someone to draw him a peg, so Mark “what’s a bad peg” Poppleton steps up & pulls 2 pegs, allowing Steve to select 1, which turned out to be p85 and Mark ended up on p74.  See what I mean?

 

As for me p105 was my home for the day. Nick Merry came 4^th from yesterdays open, so at least there was a few fish around. With the cooling weather I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach today and in the end decided to keep the groundbait & meat in the carryall, concentrating on feeding pellet & corn. The intention was to catch carp and maybe a few skimmers if the carp didn’t feed. As such I set 3 rigs to fish open water, but only ended up catching on 2.

- Ackoo Carrat 0.3g > .16 > 16 B911 (open water)

- HB Chump 0.3g > .14 > 16 B911(open water)

- HB AK47 0.2g > .17 > 16 (margin)

 

On the all in I potted in 3mm krill pellet & soften 4s at 13m to my right and 6s & corn 13m to my left. Whilst I let that settle I cast out the lead & meat, but got bored after 10mins, so switched to the pole. The right hand swim was fizzing a little, whilst the left hand swim wasn’t. Corn produced a couple of knocks, but 6mm expander produced the fish.

 

I kept feeding pellet & corn by catapult into the left hand swim, whilst toss potting 4s & corn into the right hand swim. After 2hrs it was the right hand swim that produced 5 carp and a number of skimmers, whilst the left hand swim only produced a handful of small skimmers.

 

So far the rain had stayed away and from those I could see was doing Ok, however as soon as the rain started bites dried up. A switch to the light rig produced a few more skimmers on 4mm expander, but I was reluctant to drop to a .12 bottom, in case a carp turned up.

 

Before I knew it there was only 2hrs left. Mark was catching a few, but also losing a few to the trailing branches of the willow tree, Paul on 77 was catching on the waggler and Steve on 85 was catching well down his margin. As for my section (p94-p109), feedback suggested most were struggling, so still all to play for. I had been feeding pellet & corn into the left hand margin from the start, but with no bites decided to make something happen.

 

A full pot of pellet and corn was deposited into the right hand 13m swim and another pot went into the left hand margin. I had also brought some dead maggot and last weeks unused caster, which were potted into the right hand margin with some corn.

 

The open water swims didn’t produce any further fish, despite some fizzing, which just left the margins. Fishing worm I had 2 carp, a big skimmer and a perch from the left hand margin. A few more silvers came from the right hand margin and I did hook 2 more carp, but lost both. The first was a proper lad, which came in easily enough, but as soon as I started to get its head up, it decided it was time to visit the centre of the lake. The second was about 8-9lb, but the hook pulled at the net.

 

By the all out, I wished I had more time as I felt there was a few more fish to catch. I knew I hadn’t framed, but was hopeful of at least picking up in section, but Alan on p94 had 11 carp, which beat me, so it was a pleasant surprise my accidentally on purpose silvers was enough to take the silvers money to keep the good form going.

 

1^st 260-11 – Steve Ince – p85

2^nd 149- 1 – Paul Westlake – p77

3^rd 122- 8 – Mark Poppleton – p74

4^th 98-12 – Nicholas Ince – p86

5^th 93- 4 – Alan Aslett – p94

6^th 89- 7 – Tom Ince – p80

 

Silvers

1^st 11-12 – Ken Rayner – p105