Woolavy's Wanderings: Viaduct C+C, 24/03/13 Pawlett Club match

Somerton Viaduct was venue for todays Wanderings, Pawlett Legion had booked up Campbell and Cary lakes in the hope of some decent sport at the Southwest's best venue. Fishing 10:30-16:30.

It was 21 degrees on this day in 2012..............it never got above minus 4 with windchill today!!
Sadly, the weather put amends to everyone having a few bites and catching a few fish. It seriously must be the worst spell of weather which isnt conductive to decent(or more importantly fair) results.
It seems that venues around here have seen the same 3 or 4 pegs dominate since before christmas and that the drawbag is giving much more advantage to those who draw the hot pegs. Flyers are flyers but it'd be nice if everyone had some bites.

Anyways, arriving at the fishery at 8:30 saw a rather busy car-park. It turned out that the venue also had a match covering match, lodge and spring lakes (read Tony Rixon's blog fro result no doubt)
Upto today, I wanted a draw on Campbell, a lake I have never fished 'match style', I last fished it in the 90's for specimen eels and rogue carp (when it was the venue's speci pond). Cary, which hadnt produced much recently, looked really un-inviting.
23 numbers went into the hat, 12 on Campbell, 11 on Cary. I drew halfway amonst the grabbing of tickets. Peg 86 was my home for the next 8 hours or so.The peg is halfway along the river bank.
Next to me I had John Barker(?) on peg 85 and Rich Barnden on P88.

Chris Ware had drawn well on Campbell, peg 116, this peg had done nearly 150lb on Thursday I believe. But everyone should have a few on Campbell. But put a half decent angler on an in-form peg........

Wandering back to my car to get the kit, I bumped into Viaduct specialist and record holder Tom Mangnall. He told me 86 was the best peg on the lake......well it was until recently.

It was Viaduct's 1st pellet allowed match of 2013, so with this in mind, coupled with a silly cold and reasonably strong wind blowing from my left, cold water and the fact it has been patchy at least meant that everyone was basing their attacks on the lead or waggler. I think only 3 of us set up a pole on Cary.

So my set ups were a 3/4oz lead on 6lb sensor, a 14" hooklength of 0.14 matchteam to a band on a hair on a Drennan Carp Feeder size 16. Using meat, corn, bread discs and 8mm pellet on the band. I fished this in a wide-ish area at 30yrds or so. Over which I fed 8mm pellets and some 6mm meat.

I also set up a 4AAA waggler, which was to be fished around the swim, but nothing occured so no more on that.

2 pole rigs to be fished at 9m due to the wind were set up, 1 for a corn/meat/pellet on 0.14/size 16 B911x out in front. The 2nd was for at the 10am position, with 0.10/B611x size 18, for any silly silvers that wanted to venture in that close.

On the whistle I cupped in a pot of mixed 6mm meat, corn and 6mm pellets in front and a pot of groundbait with a few dead reds at 10 o'clock line. I would leave these for at least an hour.

I lobbed the lead out and cattyed a few free offerings over the top. On looking around Chris Higgs over on peg 100 had a carp 1st cast. 20 minutes in and I had received a few liners and then hooked and landed a skimmer of 10oz. Blank avoided. Nobody else had a bite of substance from what I could see. So I plugged away, chopping and changing baits and searching the vacinity of where my freebies were landing in the wind.

By 12 o'clock I had landed 3 small skimmers, John on p85 had 1 skimmer on a feeder set-up cast off the point of the spit. Pegs 88 and 90 hadnt had a bite and the pegs along the back of lodge lake were struggling, Chris Higgs hadnt had another bite, but Mike Levy on peg 96 had landed a couple decent sized skimmers soon after he had got back to his swim after popping round for a chat and to get his body moving and warmed up. I did have a look over the pole lines for ten minutes but with no joy so I re-fed for a look later.

2:30 arrived and went, with only 6 of us left on the lake and only 1 carp from the pegs i could see, things were tough. Mike Levy had landed a few more decent skimmers and I think he was now ahead of my silvers bag.
Over on Campbell, Chris Ware was apparantly on his 4th keepnet and was catching 1 a chuck, the overall result was sorted well before the end. There were a few others catching on Campbell and 2nd and 3rd could be close.

At 3pm I had another look on the pole lines, and 2nd put over the GB the float dipped and a 2oz blade was in the net, nothing else occured on either line in the next 10 minutes so the pole was abandoned for the day, which seeing as I couldnt feel my hands, wasnt a bad thing. By feeding the ducks my caster and maggots, my hands were kept active and didnt completely freeze solid.

At half 3, a few carp had been caught from the other end of the lake, but me and Mike were level-ish on the silvers front, and with only 1 pay-out for silvers I hoped for a couple more skimmers, duly Mike landed another with an hour to go, then he had another at 4pm before deciding to slowly pack up.
Between 4 and 4:10 I managed to sneak a couple smaller skimmers, and slowly started packing up around me hoping for another bite. Alas, this bite never happened and the all-out was signalled.

Steve Long was quickly around to me having weighed the lodge bank, Chris Higgs had 40lb of carp and Mike's silvers weighed 12lb 8oz. I admitted to around 12lb, but having more fish than Mike but less in the way of quality. My net went 13lb dead. Which providing no-one on Campbell had much in the way of silvers, would pocket me the silvers pay-out.

After packing up I wandered over for the results (it was way too cold for following the scales and steve was being super quick). The highest silvers from Campbell was 9lb 9oz. Bonus for me.

All in all it was really tough going all over on Cary, though Campbell did fish a bit better, it wasnt exactly consistant with 4 DNW's.
Chris Ware won, as predicted, from 116 with 182lb 8oz.

Full results:
1st C.Ware - Campbell -p116 - 182lb 8oz
2nd M. Davis - Campbell -p126 - 107lb 12oz
3rd K. Hurst - Campbell - p125 - 97lb 15oz

Top weights on Cary were:
C. Higgs - p100 - 40lb 8oz,
Kev Crouch - p78 - 24lb 6oz.

Top Silvers:
Lee Williams - Cary p86 - 13lb.