12/10/14 - Viaduct - Cary

Weight - 81lb 14oz (8lb 2oz - silvers)
Catch - 8 Carp, 6 Skimmers, 1 Hybrid, 1 Roach
Weather - Mostly cloudy and a cool northerly breeze
Match - Wests Open - 14th out of 37, 2nd in section

Today was a Wests Tackle Open over 2 lakes, namely Campbell and Cary. Of the 37 anglers fishing a number of them would be targeting the silvers, practicing for the silvers final the following weekend.

As for me I decided to take the wait and see option before deciding whether to target carp or silvers. P100 on Cary had me setting up the silvers rigs in the first instance, but with some time on my hands the lead rod was easily set up, a rig for the margin under the p101 pallet and finally a pellet rig to fish long if the carp interfered with the silvers.

On the all-in micros/4s/groundbait was deposited at 13m in front and caster at 14m to my left. Whilst I let that settle decided to cast out the lead rig giving it 15mins, just to see whether any carp were around.

Well 5mins later the tip pulled round and a double figure fish which accepted an 8mm pellet was soon landed. A further 15mins on the tip didn’t produce, so it time to see whether anything had settled over my bait on the pole line.

2 small skimmers on 4mm expander was followed by an 8lb carp, before the swim died. The caster line produced a couple of bigger skimmers, but it was very slow going. The wind also picked up from a northerly position, which had me reaching for a heavier rig and my fleece.

With 2 hours gone, I had a choice to make. The only way I could see me picking up any money would be to win my 6 peg section (98-105), because whilst I couldn’t see many silvers being caught I fully expected someone would be catching. I still kept the long lines topped up in case any big skimmers or even carp turned up, but it never produced.

Since I only had a handful of 8s with me, a bag of 8s was soon acquired from the shop so I could keep catapulting pellet over the lead line. My 2 carp currently put me 2^nd in the section behind Ryan on P99 who had 4 or 5 fish.

I gradually closed the gap with Ryan, but lost fish proved to be a problem, losing 5 when the hook just pulled for no particular reason, I assume because they were only lightly hooked, although at least 1 had snagged a full pole rig with the carp still attached and another felt foul hooked.

I was really hoping my margin would prove decisive and with 2 hours left started feeding groundbait initially, but mostly fed caster and 6mm pellet. I got my first bite here with 30mins to go when I landed a big hybrid on worm. With 10 mins left I hooked a big carp, only for the line to snap above the float and with no line left to set up another rig I dropped the lead rig into the margin and almost immediately hooked another carp.

Come the weigh in it became apparent how close I got to catching Ryan who weighed 90-6 to win the section, which meant I was 1 Cary carp behind. So I could have really done with not losing so many fish, but sometimes there is no accounting for unexpected breakages.

1^st 190- 7 – Mark Poppleton – p118
2^nd 183- 9 – Calum Craig – p112
3^rd 174-10 – Steve Southern – p87
4^th 137- 8 – Ben Ludwell – p94
5^th 133- 2 – Adrian Jeffrey – p86
6^th 126-14 – Ashley Tomkins – p126

Silvers
1^st 32- 9 – Nigel Bartlett – p111
2^nd 25-10 – Bob Gullick – p85
3^rd 19- 5 – Dick Bull – p125