On Saturday I. along with 100+ other anglers, hoped for a decent draw and a decent weight from one of the lakes at Viaduct, personally I fancied a peg on Spring or Lodge as Cary and Campbell had been patchy recently, though good weights are always on the cards with those 2 lakes.
I arrived in plenty of time and had a chat to a few guys and looked at the pegs on Spring and Middle.
A lot of fish were on the surface pretty much anywhere on the lake, but really an island chuck on Spring could be good, so pegs 2,3,4,5, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26 will have a chance, but it was pegs 8 and 22 that grabbed my attention with both being corners and loads of room.
Middle looked ok, but wasn't my preferred option. Lodge, well any corner will do but 64 and 73 would work for me.
Anyways a bit more chatter flowed before the draw which was 9am (ish), there were plenty of locals fishing today and it'd be good if one or 2 did well. Roy Worth has been on form recently, mostly on the lead, and Scott Russell too has been winkling a few out and doing well. Then we had the likes of Freddy Roberts, Dave Romain, Ben Hagg, Dan White, Andy Power, Alex Murray and may others who know the lakes well.
The draw was made and I was 3rd to grab a ticket, peg 9 on Spring, not the worst, but 1 peg short and 1 peg too far as 8 and 10 were better (corner/space for 8 and island for 10).
 |
| Spring peg 9, Viaduct. |
I made my way to the peg and began to sort my kit, fresh rigs made as plenty of set-up time.
For company I had Dave Romaine on 8, he does draw well, he was chuffed with his peg.
On peg 10 I had a nice chap who's name I never got, then Alex Murray was on peg 11.
I set up a waggler and lead to fish 2/3rds of the way across to the island (my peg boundary), a long shallow rig for stalking, a shorter rig for slapping/shallow at 14m, a rig for down to my left margin and one for banded pellet to fish at 6m and over the 14m shallow line.
Bait was simple 8mm and 6mm pellet, 8mm meat and some hemp.
At the all in I potted a few bits of bait into the varying areas before beginning on the stalking rig, but the fish were wary and slightly out of range, so after 10 mins I switched to the waggler set around 12" deep with banded 8mm pellet on the hook. After 10 mins of this I hooked a fish which went a bit mad and was netted after a 5 minute battle, it looked rather large and if it was not spawned out then it'd have been 17lb or so, but was around 12 or 13lb.
A blank period followed, but Dave on p8 had landed a few as had the guy over on peg 25 or 26.
A look on the pole shallow at 14m saw me land a carp of similar size to my 1st fish.
So 2 hours in I had a couple carp which went 22lb. And that was my match done. I did land a handful of skimmers upto 4oz but that was it....
The lack of island chuck was the main factor, which is life, but pegs 3, 4 and 5 never really bothered with the island chuck and they struggled for fish too.
Alex Murray had double figures of silvers on paste, including a decent 3lb eel hooked in the wrong end... to go with a flurry of late carp caught on the wag/lead close to the island.
The chap on peg 12 landed a good few carp and the angler on p10 landed a couple of late carp to boost his weight to 34lb.
Dave Romaine on peg 8 managed 60-odd pounds to win his section.
It was a nice day though and rather warm, my feet bore the brunt of the sun's rays....
 |
| Sandals weather!! |
The match ended up being won off Campbell peg 135 by Simon Keifer, Scotty Russell was 2nd from Lodge 73 and Roy Worth was third from 122, Dan White was 5th, so a good local showing. Ben Hagg, Dave Romaine, Fred Roberts all won their sections, maybe Alex Murray too.....well done all.
Next up for me was a match at Sedges Tile lake with Clevedon FWAC after PSV's match at Plantation Horseshoe lake was cancelled.
Take Care
Lee
No comments:
Post a Comment