Monday, 3 March 2014

02/03/14 - Viaduct - Lodge

Weight - 74lb 7oz (6lb 2oz - silvers)
Catch - 8 Carp, 7 Roach, 2 Skimmers, 2 Rudd, 2 Hybrid, 1 Perch
Weather - Cloudy & breezy. Heavy rain later
Match - Winter League - 10th out of 95, 4th in section

The 4th and penultimate round of the Winter League and it was my turn for Lodge (and a bit of Cary), which would be float only. After 3 poor draws we really needed a recent draw and as a team we agreed who ever was on Campbell would do the team draw, which would have been Fred Robert. However he decided going to Todber would be more fun that Viaduct, which left it to the world renowned drawbag Chris Fox. When Chris turned up in the car park I feared the worst, because it didn’t look happy, although I’m not sure I have ever seen him happy. Team draw 4 was the same draw we had for the first match, so 113 Campbell, 79 Cary, 3 Spring, 9 Spring, leaving me with 73. Not a great draw for the team with 2 decent pegs and 3 poor. Peg 73 is a peg I have always managed to avoid thus far, but also fancied. During this series it hasn’t been the best, with the other corner pegs 64 & 66 being the better, however its usually worth a few fish and the best weight so far being 24-10 & 14pts.
 
I did wonder whether I would have one of the days. After plumbing up the right hand margin & under the tree, I swung round to plumb the left margin and promptly tangled the rig in the brambles. Needless to say I lost the lot, much to the amusement of Tony Rixon & Tim Clark on the opposite bank.
 
Rigs for the day
- Ackoo carrat 0.3g > .16 > 16 B911 (hair rig) – margins
- Ackoo carrat 0.3g > .12 > 16 B911 – left hand margin – caster
- Chimp 0.4g > .10 > 20 silverfish maggot – 13m
I also set up a bread dobbing rig, but it never got used.
 
Talking to a couple of people prior to setting up I had a good idea of how to approach the swim, which including dobbing the margin with a bread rig. Personally this isn’t my bag, so decided to go straight in with double 6mm meat and if I was getting loads of liners, then I would use the dobbing rig.
 
5mins in, I was a bit too quick to strike, rather than let the bite develop and promptly bumped a carp. At least there appeared to be a few fish around. Rather than go straight in, decided to feed my other swims, so caster/meat into the left hand margin, 5 balls of groundbait/caster at 13m and some meat at 5m.
With the feeding done, it was back down the right hand margin at 12m - I was warned not to go too long too early, which made sense. A couple of minutes later I had a 6lber, followed shortly by a double figure common. Well that was as much weight as I had all series.
 
Chris Davies opposite on p53 had yet to catch and for the next 40mins neither had I. A quick look over the 13m line immediately produced a pound skimmer and then a run of small fish. I never bothered here for the rest of the match.
 
Back down the right hand margin I had another carp, which secured me decent points, so pressure off a little. The rest of the match was spent fishing the right margin, gradually going longer as the fish backed further away under the tree, catching a couple of carp, then swapping to the left margin.
 
The left margin produced some quality silvers including a 2-6 perch and a pound roach, but no carp. The 5m meat line failed to produce. Because I had my back to the lake for most of the match I wasn’t sure how everyone was doing, however I could see Tony catching on the waggler and the grapevine suggested pegs 64 & 66 had produced, so it looked like I would be 4th in section, which is how it finished, although I picked up for winning my mini section.
 
As for the team we had our best result so far with 52pts
 
Chris Davies finished with 52lb and neither of us had many liners, so obviously there wasn’t a big shoal of fish at this end of the lake, in fact most anglers on Lodge had at least 1 carp, so they were well spread.
 
1st 166-8 – Chris Sandford (Amigos) – p115
2nd 160- 0 – Mike Williams (Thatchers Anglo Welsh) – p116
3rd 113- 2 – Dave Romain (Viaduct Select) – p64
4th 101-11 – Tony Rixon (Avon Angling) – p56
5th 101- 2 – Adrian Jefferies (Viaduct Allstars) – p86
6th 93- 8 – Dick Bull (Moaning Maggots) – p80

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