15/06/13 - Viaduct - Cary

Weight - 77lb 12oz (17lb 3oz - silvers)
Catch - 10 Bream, 8 Carp
Weather - Heavy rain to start, but mostly sunny and heavy winds later
Match - MFS - 17th out of 25 (2nd - section)

After seeing how hard Cary had fished on Friday, neither Mark & I were looking forward to it, however we were hopeful the wind may stir the fish into action.

 

Peg 100 was my home for the day, which Roland Lucas had caught 107lb for 3^rd in section. Within my section was the top 3 from yesterday’s match, so at least one of us was going to be disappointed. To my left on p102 was Steve Hutter and Calum Craig was to my right on 99. Fred had drawn another flyer on 97.

 

The day’s weather forecast was for heavy winds, but as were setting up it was blowing only slightly and it was it mostly calm in front of me. The intention was to spend an hour on the tip, see how it goes before fishing the 5m line were I had fed 6s and hopefully it would be full of skimmers.

 

Well that was the plan. After 45mins without a bite, I got bored and switched to the 5m line. 1 skimmer and a 12lb carp on pellet was all I could muster. So far I hadn’t fed longer because the wind was supposed to be blowing hard, but with no wind still, I decided to feed some pellet at 13m. Whilst letting that settle I tried the waggler & 8mm pellet, but only managed 1 big skimmer.

 

After 2.5hrs I was struggling, as it seemed was most others, except for Fred. A switch to the 13m line coincided with wind picking up - typical. However I managed 6 skimmers/bream on pellet, before the wind just got too strong and good presentation wasn’t possible.

 

In the meantime Calum started to catch on the tip and was now 4 carp ahead of me. So any thoughts of a pickup disappeared. Since I couldn’t catch on the pole and the short line was a waste of time, I had no choice but to fish the tip.

 

I had been fishing meat without success, so switched to 8mm pellet coated in predator plus. Over the next hour I had 4 carp and was now only 2 behind Calum. With 90mins left I stayed on the tip just hoping it would continue to go round. It didn’t for 30mins, but they returned with a further 3 carp, landing the last one 2mins from the end, but I was still 2 behind Calum and it looked like it was between the 2 or us for the 2^nd in section money.

 

45mins previously I had dumped a pot of meat in the margin, followed up with a further pot. A previous look on the pole only produced knocks from roach, but as I was playing my last carp, I noticed a carp being spooked by the weigh in on Lodge Lake. So with only 2mins to go, instead of casting out, I decided to drop the lead rig into the margin and bugger me if the tip didn’t go round, although it wasn’t the expected carp, but a 3lb bream. That will do.

 

As it turned out it was an inspired move, because Calum had 10 carp to my 8, but I knew I had more silvers. However, Calum has hooked a carp 10mins from the end and was still playing it after the whistle. I stood behind me to check his progress and I may have mentioned that he would need that fish, just as I said that the hook pulled and I beat Calum by 3oz to claim 2^nd in section!  Fred won our section with 113-6 and Ben Bentley won the lake from p88 with 115-4.

 

Overall Cary fished harder than yesterday, but Campbell fished its nuts off with only 2 anglers weighing less 100lb.

 

1^st 249-15 – Adam Mitchell – p110

2^nd 211-10 – Dave Brittan – p123

3^rd 207-12 – Richard Wyatt – p132

4^th 200-13 – Alex Murray – p115

5^th 193-14 – Russell Graves – p130

6^th 180- 4 – Roland Lucas – p125

 

Silvers

1^st 69- 8 – Alex Murray – p115

2^nd 58- 4 – Roland Lucas – p125

3^rd 37- 2 – Steve Musitano – p126

4^th 29- 0 – Dave Brittan – p123