PSV Match, Viaduct Campbell, 07-09-14

Sunday saw myself along with 17 other guys tackling the popular bagging lake at Somerset's finest Viaduct Fishery in Somerton.
Now after Saturday's affair at Ridgeway, I was expecting to catch a good few more than that, in fact it wouldn't have surprised me if a few anglers on Campbell caught more individually than all 20 of us put together at Ridgeway!..........hmmm

Well, I arrived at the venue in plenty of time, so I unloaded the car and went and chatted with a few guys. The subject soon turned to how 'well' the lake fished on Saturday....it turned out something like 102lb won it.....that's over 100lb less than predicted/normal. So high hopes soon diminished, but it was another day and you never know.

The 9am draw was soon ready, we were paying top 3 and 2 silvers. So I fancied any peg except either of the end bank pegs (121 and 135), but 118/119 or 128 took my fancy really.
I again took the 3rd last ticket and was rewarded with peg 121, bang in the middle of the far end bank. Not ideal.
So I headed to the peg, following Chris Davis along the path, he was on end peg 119, a snaggy but fish holding peg for sure.
On peg 123 (best silvers peg on the complex) was Kev Jefferies.



Campbell Lake peg 121, Viaduct Fishery.

At my peg I surveyed the scene, an empty peg/pallet either side of me between which was some decent looking vegetation. There seemed to be a few cruising carp and some speeding along in 2's or 3's, like they would be prior to spawning....this high pressure seems to have done weird things to local fisheries with sport on the downturn.

Baits for the day was 8mm meat, 6mm pellets, a few pints of maggots left over form yesterday and some 8mm pellets. I also pumped some expanders for the skimmers along with a kilo of groundbait.
I set up a shallow rig (13m in front) which would double up for mugging fish, a rig for down my right margin to fish banded pellets over mixed 6's and 8's.
A meat for 8m in front of me was assembled as was a solitary silvers rig to fish maggot or expander over groundbait in the 10 o'clock direction at 7m.

I didn't set up a lead or waggler but was just about ready at the off.
The all in was called and I cupped a pot of groundbait out for the silvers, as I did this I noticed a big carp mooching around at 10m, so I quickly banded a pellet and dropped it on the fish's nose, bingo I was into a mad strong fighting fish, it took me ages to land the fish, 10 mins perhaps, but I got it in the net (just) and looked a good 17lb with a massive tail that was wider than it's belly, no wonder a powerful fight occurred.
Elsewhere a few fish had been hooked, some lost, some landed. With Rich Britton and Steve Burgess seemingly doing well in the early stages.

Well that was my action for another 90 minutes except odd silver fish, but even the decent skimmers were not feeding, just lots of blades and small roach causing fizzing of the swim.
By 12pm I was miles behind most people I could see, except Kev on p123 and Adam Caswell on p125, both were struggling.
I then decided to take a look down by the right hand pallet (peg 122) and 1st drop I was into another powerful fish, this one turned out to be a common of 13lb or so. The 2 carp I had landed must have gone 30lb between them, which was nice.

The next hour saw me add a couple small silvers to my net, but I'd given up on them really, so I rotated my swims. I did pull out of a couple hooked by empty peg 122, but I wanted to keep them away from the wooden legs of the pallet, so I wasn't too surprised to lose them.
Chris Davis and Keith Ray were suffering with losses due to snags, but they had plenty of fish in the nets too. Otherwise Mark Radford further down the lake on around peg 114 was doing ok, but it was hard to tell.

We were soon approaching 3pm and the last hour, I felt as though I was near last place, maybe with Kev and Adam with less, though Adam had a few decent skimmers and tench so looked to be winning the silvers from my view.
At this point I was on 3 carp (I bagged another one from the empty peg) and a palm full of silvers, but my meat line was blowing/fizzing, so I dropped in over that and was instantly rewarded with a carp.
I also began feeding a top-kit line with meat/pellet and after 5 mins I saw a few bubbles so I dropped the rig over the spot and had a 3lb carp soon the net.

The last 40 mins took my tally of carp to 8 and a couple skimmers were added to my nets as well.

At the all out I knew I had done not great, Chris Davis have over 100lb as had Mark Radford, I also believed Steve Burgess had a decent amount and Keith Ray had done ok, I couldn't see much else, though Alan Healey had struggled from his peg and was looking to give a quid to Adam and Steve B.

The scales soon arrived at my peg and I never looked at the board, so got on with passing the fish to Steve Long to weigh. I had 4lb exactly of silvers and my 8 carp added another 64lb 6oz to my total.
A quick glance at the weights saw that I had somehow had more than Mr Burgess, so at least I had a quid to come!!!
I finished packing up and went to load the car before seeing the results, but my 68lb didn't seem a bad weight from what I could gather.

Results:
1st. Peg 119. Chris Davis, 108lb 15oz
2nd. Peg 114. Mark Radford, 107lb 14oz
3rd. Peg 126. Rich Britton, 89lb 6oz

Silvers 1st: Adam Caswell, peg 125, 16lb 7oz
Silvers 2nd: Lee Waller, peg 128, 15lb 2oz



Weigh Sheet.

So another tricky day fishing, and I am surprised to finish in 6th as I was certain to be lower down, so I am thankful of those first 2 carp I landed. It'd have been nice if the larger skimmers had shown, but I guess it wasn't to be.
It does seem that a few fisheries have switched off, it must be this bout of higher pressure, little wind, big moons and an increase in temps.

Next week is Avalon with the PSV guys again.......skimmers or carp? lets see......

Until next time, tight lines.
Lee