Float Only Series, Round 1, Viaduct. 27th May 2018

I managed to get on to this series as a late replacement, though I will miss the last round of the series due to a holiday, so Steve Tucker will be fishing that one for me (as it was his place I took, lol).

I arrived through a barrage of rain that had passed over the region, thankfully after this early morning spell it stayed dry throughout the day and quite warm
A bit of a chat and trolley loaded and into the tin, we have 40 on this series son would be on Cary and Campbell, I wanted Campbell, ideally around 112 to 115 or anywhere on the far side. I cant even remember the last match I fished on the lake other than their Xmas match,
My plans were to fish for silvers each round as I don't feel I can compete overall in the league given the quality of anglers fishing it.
I drew peg 119, I didn't really fancy it to be honest, it can be brilliant but it blows more cold than hot.
For company I had Clayton Hudson on peg 118, which is a better peg with a good edge (after some tree tidying) and is set slightly further out into the lake than those either side of him.
Behind me I had the most consistent angler, probably most successful too, Craig 'Trig' Edmunds, he was on Cary 81 and his peg was awash with fish, the two words 'writing' and 'wall' sprung to mind.
I also had Ryan Shipp in front of me on peg 121, I fancied that peg to do well and another good angler on it.

Peg 199, Viaduct Campbell.

I assembled a waggler, this would be fished to the end bank, never gave a bite.
I assembled a token silvers rig as when I got to my peg I didn't expect them to play ball generally speaking, again no fish on this.(DT F1/Silvers in 0.3g)
A shallow rig for mugging and fishing properly shallow. (DT Pinger in 0.1)
An edge rig for along the end bank and down to my left. (DT RBS Margin 0.3g), 2 lost foulers and 1 hook pull.
A deck pellet rig for 14m in front slightly right in the reflection of a tree. (DT RBS in 0.4g). No fish, just a few liners/foulers lost.
Lastly a meat rig for 6m in front. (DT RBS in 0.3g)

Bait was groundbait, 8mm pellets, 6mm pellets and some hemp and 8mm meat. Some casters and dead maggots too.

I won't bore you with the details, simply because there is not much to tell, as generally it fished slow on Campbell with the odd exception.
I started short on meat and had a 12lber after 10 minutes or so, then I promptly lost 4, a mixture of foul hookers and dodgy hooklength I should have changed.
I managed another before the hour mark, a fish of 8lb or so on the meat. My third carp came after 90 minutes. Around 9lb I guessed.

A couple looks on the silvers line I had fed at 13, no bites despite fizzing. A couple looks along the end bank gave nothing and the pellet rig on the deck gave me a couple indications and a couple lost foul hookers. Looking around nobody on my lake was catching much, Ryan had maybe 5 or so nice skimmers and 1 carp, the 3 guys on the far bank all had maybe 2 or 3 fish each and Clayton on 118 only had 1.
Behind me on Cary it looked like Trig was doing well as was Chris Davis on peg 85.

Fast forward 2hrs and I managed a couple more carp, these came shallow over heavy feeding, but I think they were ones just passing by as I wasn't getting any fizzing or liners etc, the elastic would just tear out.
Meanwhile Clayton had a run of 3 fish down his edge and 4 shallow long, sort of fishing blind as he wasn't getting mush in the way of indications, it would be nothing then bingo, a couple fish, then repeat.

One more fish for the rest of the match, that was a skimmer on the meat line with 90 minutes left in the match. So I went the last 2.5hrs without landing a carp, I did lose a few foul hookers and I think a couple were hook pulls when hooked properly, but cannot be sure.

The all out was called and I was sure I would be last in section, 5 carp and a small skimmer. Clayton's 2 little spells he had mid match looked to be the difference there, perhaps 80lb for him and Ryan on 121 had been consistent all day, I had him down for 100lb. The 3 others in my section were Tony Rixon, he was admitting to 160lb from 116 (possibly best peg in the section), but had started slow-ish before finding fish down his edge.
The angler opposite me looked to have had more for sure, could not be to sure on weights, 60lb+ I was convinced.

I packed up and waited for the scales. Trig was admitting to 300lb and Chris Davis 170lb on Cary, not much else was being admitted to on there.
When the scales got to me it was Mark Wynne who had 197lb and was winning, Ryan had just topped the 100lb mark with 107lb including 18lb of silvers. Peg 123 had 46lb to my surprise.
My 5 carp and 6oz skimmer was good enough for 53lb 11oz.
Clayton had perhaps 12 carp for his total of 81lb 15oz so those 2 spells defo helped.
Next up was Tony, he amassed 171lb and ounces to win the 5 peg section and perhaps 4th on the day.
So I wasn't last in the section, yay. But those few lost fish may have cost me a point, but then Clayton had lost a couple so I am not even sure if I would have.
Trig won the match with 316lb and top silvers was 'only' 27lb to Paul Faires on Campbell. But generally the fishing was patchy, as it has been in most places recently, spawning, high temps, thundery weather and a bit more pressure from anglers wont have helped, so lets hope they settle down.

For full results sheets read Tony's Blog.....Here you go.

So as predicted a tough start to the series, but such is life, hopefully my dropper.

Next up for me is a the next round up at Acorn, again it hasn't been a good series for me, poor draws costing me at the moment for sure, but I shall go and try for sure.

Until then take care.
Lee