It was back to Viaduct for the final match in the 5 match
series and I was out for revenge after the previous few weeks had seen me
drawing just off the fish or generally having a bad day. My destination was
Match Lake, peg 46, and this did not fill me with much joy as it had not really
produced that much over the series but having never fished the lake I was not
too sure what to expect.
Looking at my peg I had a nice margin to my right that
ended in a small tree at 13m ish, but I had been warned off about the amount of
twigs and branches in the margins so as soon as I got to my peg I was on my
hands and knees with a landing net dragging out about half a trees worth of
wood. This instantly made the edge look more appealing so as I was sat back on
my box I set up a margin rig to fish at 5m to my left and right tight to the
wooden boards, and it was a similar depth at 13m so that was where my main edge
line was going to be. The rig for this was ended in a size 3 tubertini 175,
onto 0.16mm cenex, from what I could make out a lot of people seemed to think
that this was excessive, but in my defence if I hooked it I wanted it in the
net. I then set up a 4X10 MW carp slim to fish meat in the open water and at
5m, it was a float depth deeper at 5m so that worked quite well with the amount
of line above the float, this rig was for fishing meat so I had yellow reflex
elastic and a size 1 Tubby 175. I also set up a dobbing rig for down the edge
and a shallow mugging rig as the sun was out and I was hoping to see a few
lumps enjoying the spring warmth, it didn’t happen so that’s enough about those
rigs.
The all in was called at 1030 and I shipped out on both
of my meat lines with a small amount of hemp and about 20 pieces of meat, and I
started by dobbing 3 maggots down the edge, it didn’t feel right though and
some of the others were catching F1’s straight away on the bomb from tight to
the island. I instantly felt as though I was in for a trouncing so I went
looking on my long line with meat and started to ping 4-5, 6mm pieces of meat
in every couple of minutes to try and make something happen before I went down
the edge later. Something did happen and
my first proper bite saw me attached to about 8lb of carp that fought like a
skimmer until it was under the top kit. I kept feeding the line but it had gone
quiet so I decided to have a quick look down the edge on caster, I was
instantly into perch and at 6-32 ounces they were well worth catching, I caught
long and short to my right on maggot and had a great hour putting a few of them
into the net, all the time feeding the long and short meat lines. Mid match I had
a run of F1’s from the long line and also managed another better carp from down
the edge, the F1’s seemed to coincide with when the shadow of a tree was
falling on the water where I had been feeding.
I would get a run of 3-4 fish and then I would have to change swim as
they backed off, and with an hour and a quarter I had my first look at 5m on
meat.
I had 4 fish for about 10lb in 4 put ins and was thinking
that I was about to smash the lake when it just went dead again and this saw me
struggle for the rest of the match whilst I still got to watch the guys
catching F1’s casting to the island, John Moody had had a really good couple of
hours mid match but started to slow towards the end and Andy Power to my right
seemed to be putting small carp into the net every so often so I knew that he
had done me as well come the end.
The all out was called and Tom to my left and myself were
grateful, we had about the same number of fish but I had carp and he had F1’s,
how important bagging the bonus fish was shown on the scales when I weighed in
40lb odd and Tom managed a mid-twenty pound weight. Andy had 60lb helped by
what I think was a late surge and John managed 90lb for a lake win and third in
the match.
I ended up with 12 points again which I was happy with
from that peg, the team didn’t come last which is always nice, I lost another
quid to Moody but this was fortunately funded by Ken Rayner and finally many
thanks to guys for running a fabulous series, I can only hope that I can compete
in it again next year.
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