Having not overslept or got up early due to the clocks falling back an hour, I loaded the car and had brekkie before the 20 minute drive was underway.
I arrived and paid Mike Wilson the entry money and had a chat with a few guys, including Jonny Page who was on the Cary lake open match.
We chatted about the frost overnight was likely to have put a dampener on the sport and that it could be a tricky day. I know I fancied the pegs around the rope of Lodge, on the Cary Bank (pegs 68 to 71) and maybe the opposite pegs, I was hopefully going to fish for the silvers and the middle/far end is the likely spots for these.
Peg 53 and 73 are nice pegs for mostly carp with the big fallen tree an obvious feature to attract the carp and anglers alike. To be fair the only pegs not wanted were 55, 56, 57 all in front of the Shop/Café. These pegs can be hard at the best of times, but you never know how things pan out.
The draw was soon underway and I plucked the 4th from last ticket and was despondent to see peg 55 staring back at me.....well at least the weather looked fair and little wind and dry.
For company I had Steve Sewell down in the corner on p53, Mark Radford on peg 56 and further along was Adam Caswell.
The rope pegs on the Cary bank were taken by Matt 'The Waggler' Taynton and Chris 'I don't draw duff' Szakacs, so they looked good for a few fish.
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| Viaduct Lodge Lake peg 55 |
I went about sorting my gear, mixing up some groundbait, prepped some expanders and chopped a tin of meat into 6mm pieces. I also had some casters, micros, dead maggots and some 6mm pellets.
Tackle was then assembled, a small groundbait feeder was put up, but this was fishless all day.
3 pole rigs were knocked up. One for carp at 13m down my left edge, slightly off the grasses, this was 0.18>0.14>16 b911x hook.
2 identical silvers rigs were put together, one with a long line to fish at top kit distance, ideally for some roach. The other on a shorter line for 14.5m in two spots, hoping for a few skimmers. One line would be for groundbait, the other micros. The rigs were 0.2g floats to 0.14>0.10>b911F1 size 18s.
At the all in I cupped 4 balls of groundbait on that line and some micros/expanders on the other line.
Some 6mm pellets and meat along with caster went along my left margin.
I began on the feeder and could see that Steve O'Toole was into a carp right away, he was on peg 68, he had it on the bomb.
After half an hour it was obvious it was going to be tough as nobody had really caught much as all, the odd small roach and skimmer were had and that was it.
I came in on the top kit line where i had been trickling mostly casters and a few a couple minutes I had a 1oz perch....great sign....Not!!
A small roach followed before I was out on the long pole lines, and it was these two lines that I spent the next couple of hours. Although the line fed with micros never gave a bite.
During this spell I had a handful of 3 to 4oz skimmers and odd baby roach. Mark Radford was also struggling, but had picked up a couple better skimmers and foul hooked an eel of perhaps 2lb.
Elsewhere Ryan Radford was fishless, Matty Taynton had landed a decent skimmer but had pulled out of a couple carp, landed a couple too, but was not having a great time.
Steve Sewell also had at least a couple carp in his nets from a line under the big tree. Everyone was finding it hard though.
It was soon 1pm and I took a look down my left edge using the meat, and promptly missed a bite before the next drop saw a nice bit of elastic pulled from the pole and after a spirited scrap a 5 or 6lb carp was landed. No more indications came so i fed a little more and tried my top kit line again.
But it was still hard to get regular bites, I fed a small nugget of groundbait here and hoped this could work. So back out on the long groundbait line and a couple small skimmers were netted, probably putting my silvers to about 2.5lb.
Chris Szakacs had chucked a lead out and was soon into a carp, with number 2 or 3 following a short while later.
I plodded on and on. Oh...I did bank a skimmer from my top kit line, this was maybe 2lb.
It was soon 3pm and another look down my left edge saw me miss a bite as I drank my cuppa, but a few minutes after this missed bite and a line bite, as a lowered my rig in again I had an indication and struck into something lumpy.
A 10 minute battle saw me just about squeeze a lump of a carp into my landing net, this fish looked a good 16 to 18lb......bargain. I hoped for another but it wasn't to be as the last 40 minutes only gave me a small roach.
Ryan Radford landed a couple silvers and a 15lb edge caught carp in the last hour to save him from blanking.
The all out was called and I began packing up, I did reckon to Mark Radford that he could win the silvers, but we were sort of thinking Steve Burgess had caught well all day on his latest efforts in catching some silvers.
Adam had next to nothing, but the top 3 spots looked to be going to one of Steve O'Toole, Chris Szakacs, Matt Taynton and Steve Sewell, all of them having 4 carp each plus odd skimmers.
Steve Sewell weighed first putting 33lb 10oz on the sheet (4 carp, 2 skimmers), I was next and 5lb was my silvers reward while my 2 carp together weighed 24lb 1oz giving me a shade over 29lb.
Mark Radford had 8lb of silvers and Adam amassed a paltry 2lb.
I finished packing up and loaded the car before I managed to see the weigh sheet, Chris had 37lb but there were 3 guys with 33lb+ and then my 29lb.
Mark won the silvers with Lionel Legge 2nd in this category,
Results:
1st, Chris Szakacs, peg 69. 37lb 4oz
2nd, Matt Taynton, peg 70. 33lb 11oz
3rd, Steve Sewell, peg 53, 33lb 10oz
4th, Steve O'Toole, peg 68, 33lb 7oz
5th, Lee Williams, peg 55, 29lb 1oz
Silvers:
1st, Mark Radford, peg 56, 8lb 11oz
2nd, Lionel Legge, peg 62, 7lb 7oz
So a tricky day and not one to remember really, but I am glad I had those 2 carp. 1 more and you could have framed, but always if's and but's.......I don't think I would have 9lb of silvers from my peg.
Next weekend sees me fishing the 1st round of Avalon's Teams of Three, with Steve and Eric Fouracres being my partners.
Until then, tight lines.
Lee
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| Weigh Sheet |
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