30/01/14 - Viaduct - Cary

Weight - 37lb 3oz
Catch - 4 Carp, 5 Roach, 1 Skimmer, 1 Hybrid, 1 Ruffe
Weather - Cloudy - cold northerly breeze
Match - Cost Cutter - 5th out of 10

With the 2nd round of the Winter League on Sunday, I decided to book in for today’s cost cutter match, with the expectation it would be on Campbell, which would have been perfect since I will there Sunday, but the match had been moved to Cary, because Campbell hasn’t been fishing well. The 10 of us that turned up were well spread around the lake and I was happy enough with p102, although the wind had switched around to a northerly direction and I was the coldest I have been for a while.

Setting up was easy today, since my 2 lead rods were already set up and a waggler rig didn’t take long to sort out. With too much time on my hands I also set up a couple of pole rigs to fish caster/maggot at 13m in front and 13m to my left 5m from the bank.
On the all-in the waggler was cast out with triple dead maggot and 15mins a 10-11lb carp was safely netted. I spent the next hour on the waggler casting to various areas of the swim, but only caught a small skimmer.

So I could warm up my hands I cast out the lead rig with maggot. An hour later I had a pull round and was attached to a decent fish, that came in well enough, but once under the rod tip kited right and kept going. It was obviously a big fish, but the hook eventually pulled.

Unsurprisingly not much had been caught. Chris Davies on p74 had 2 carp, p78 had 1, as did Dan White on p87. Andy Power in the meantime had 3 or 4 carp on p96. During the middle part of the match I tried the 13m line which only produced a few small fish and was soon binned after 20mins, so it was a case of sticking with the waggler or lead.

Going into the 5th hour I had 3 carp all on meat on consecutive casts, including another low double, but also 2 small carp (well small for Cary), bring my total to 4, which compared favourably with Chris who also had 4, whilst p78 and Dan both had 3. Andy in the meantime kept catching and we were fishing for 2^nd. 

at least someone fancied by bait

 

Unfortunately the final hour was a disappointment, I expected a least 1 more pull round which didn’t happen. My left hand 13m swim, which I had kept topped up with caster in the hope of a late carp, only produced roach on double caster.  By the all out I thought it would be between Chris & I for 2nd spot, however p98 landed a 19lber late on to add to his 2 carp and winning bag of silvers, Dan had a 22lber and Chris’s 4 fish were ultimately bigger than mine.

 

1st 135- 0 - Andy Power - p96

2nd 55-13 - D Bancroft - p98

3rd 46- 0 - Chris Davies - p74

4th 41-13 - Dan White - p87

5th 37-13 - Ken Rayner - p102

 

Silvers

1st 16- 1 - D Bancroft - p98

2nd 7- 6 - Colin Dyer - p77