Viaduct 13m Pole Match and Float Only rnd 2 at Landsend. 9th and 10th June

Not too much to write about today regarding the weekend just gone. Saturday saw Mike Nicholls running a 13m pole only match at Viaduct on Campbell lake, so I had booked into that.
So I arrived in loads of time, sorted the kit and it was soon the draw, 121 or 135 on the 2 end banks were my 'hope fors' but I managed to get 126, not so good, actually one of the pegs I would very rarely, if ever. pick out of choice. It can be ok for silvers at times though.

At my peg I set up a short meat line rig for under an overhanging tree to my right, a pellt rig for down my right edge. Plus shallow and deep pellet rigs for 13m in front. Lastly a token silvers rig which I didn't fancy using, but had John Fuidge over on 118 fishing for them as a guide to if the skimmers were having a munch.

peg 126 Campbell

Well I could waffle on about what I tried etc but where I was, and really for most on the lake, it was hard going and other than a few foul hooked fish which inevitably came off I only managed 4 carp during the day, 1 on the deck on the long pellet rig, 1 on meat and 2 shallow. I also had a few silvers, maybe 5lb or so. I didn't trouble the scales. 2 pegs to my left Fred Roberts only had 1 skimmer in just over 2 hours fishing so went home then. Martin McMahon on my right had 1 carp, 2 roach and a skimmer and the chap to my left got 3 foul hooked lumps in and managed another 4. There were quite a few catches of around 3 or 4 carp and I never saw John catching much silvers, similarly Mike Nicholls said he never had too many and lost some tench in the edge. Peg 123 had a few skimmers, but that can be a great silvers (and carp) peg.
Not sure on the results as I would have been half way home by then but Martin Rayet caught well in the 2nd half of the match on peg 116 after an almost fishless 2.5hrs at the start. Joe McMahon on 135 had a few I gathered after a slow start.

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Sunday saw me at Landsend for the 2nd round of Tony Rixon's Float Only Series.
I fancied being on the match lake and would have preferred to be along the far bank pegs 13 to 24. Or 68 on Lake 3 as I like that peg., as I never draw flyers pegs 32 and 33 on Speci were unlikely to end in my hand.
I did get the area I wanted though in peg 19 and was quite pleased with the draw to be fair. I did fancy fishing for silvers, but that went out of the window due to my stubbornness I guess.
A shallow rig for stalking and against the island where it was only around 10 inches deep at the most.
A meat rig for 6m in front and a little to the left.
A pellet rig for my topkit to my left by a fallen tree/snag.
An edge rig for along my right edge if needed.

peg 19 Lansend

Again not a lot to mention on the day, I landed one early then started to suffer a few lost foul hooked fish, one was decent but done me under my platform just as I thought I had it beaten. The next drop I foul hooked one that came to the top to be netted and turned an belted across to the far bank reeds and broke me.
I managed a skimmer of 2.5lbs on my silvers line and a couple margin roach and rudd on maggots. I also had a couple flying skimmers shed the hook, both looked a good 3lb each.
I did manage to see some fish caught during the day from the opposite bank in Shawn Townsend and Martin Rayet. Plus Neil Mercer on peg 18 to my left had a few on and off during the day including landing a couple decent sized foul hookers. He had Gary O'Shea on his left who also had a decent enough day on peg 16.

Well for me I had 2 carp in the first hour by fishing across, only small carp though, 4lbers.
Then a quiet spell of a couple hours before a couple more from across and a couple mugged fish.
One carp from my right edge another 4lber was the only carp from there, in hindsight I should have fished further along that margin.
The last 90 mins gave me 2 small carp on the meat line, which they were visiting all day but not feeding and defo not on the bottom. I think I ended with 7 carp and my clicker had 33lb on it.
I expected to be last in section, no shock in that.

At the weigh in I somehow didn't manage last in section as Neil had 80lb-ish and Bela had 70lb-ish from peg 21 then my 44lb was 3rd much to the amusement of Tony.
The last couple of pegs in the section were not so good as Gordon Canning and Vince Shipp struggled. Prior to our bank weighing it was Shaun Townsend on peg 6 who won the lake and second on the day with 187ln fishing long to some reedy type plants, the cover and shade would have helped and Neil on peg 18 caught well in the last hour when the shade had covered his part of the island.

I had tried all sorts to try and get a few extra fish, even big potting maggots across, and hoping that would help. It didn't make a difference. Maybe I could have fed heavier but I didn't fancy foul hooking too many more than what I had done. Maybe I should have fished for silvers as top silvers was 9lb on the lake, and Mike West won the silvers with 11lb from Speci lake. Would I have had that? I am not sure either way.

Winner on the day was that man Craig 'Trig' Edmunds with nearly 250lb caught mostly shallow I believe from peg 32 on Speci, a good peg and good angler combo was going to be hard to beat. So well done that man.

I would imagine Mike Nicholls will have the full results of both matches when he does his blogs later in the week as he is on his yearly week long fishing 'holiday' and has a bunch of matches this week.

So for me, not a great weekend, Campbell fished hard and there was lots of anglers not catching a lot.
Landsend I drew ok but fished like a tit, I guess that is a combination of low confidence thanks to my recent drawing and me losing interest early on in the day, even before the match begins and the lack of actually catching fish in the last few weeks has left me a little rusty perhaps. But I shall persevere as I am hopeful I will get among some fish at some point.

No idea where or what I have planned for the weekend, maybe a pleasure session somewhere one day. The rivers are open from Saturday.....so maybe I will get a ticket and try one? Maybe.

Until next time, have fun.
Lee