So I had a spare weekend and decided to pop down to Somerset to the bagging Mecca that is Viaduct Fisheries, an untroubled trip down was followed by paying in and enjoying a brew whilst chatting to the other guys about how the venue was fishing. The draw was soon upon us though and I was 5th in the queue, peg 80 stuck in my hand and I was told with no uncertainty that the peg had had a bit of form lately with it picking up money in the last 2 or 3 matches. When I got to it I had the spit running up the left hand side of my peg to 18m and a blank peg to my right before Rich (One feed) plonked his seat box down in peg 78.
I watched the water for a couple of minutes and then decided on an easy approach for the day, I set up my new 10ft Force Carp Bomb with 8lb sensor to a 0.19mm hooklength with a baitband and a size 14 QM1, my reel was a 3012 TDM. To fish over the top on this line I also set up two pellet wags on 11ft Force Pellet waggler rods and Daiwa Whisker 3012 reels with 4lb maxima to 0.17mm bottoms and 16PR36’s with bait bands. One was set at 2ft with a Drennan 3gpellet wag and the other was set to 1ft with a handmade stumpy wag taking 2.5 swan, these were to try and cover how the fish may be taking the bait. Finally I set my Z9 up to fish along the Spit at 16m; my rig was Red Vespe hollow to 0.19mm mainline and a 0.17mm bottom. This was attached to a size 3 Tubertini 175 under a 0.3g Frenzee FP800, the plan was to fish meat along that margin and at 2+3 to my right where it was the same depth.
I was ready with plenty of time to spare and had a good chat with the guys around me to try and glean any more info, it sounded as though the pellet wag had not been working of late and that the bomb was the best attack with pole to the spit in the last couple of hours. At the all in I cast out the bomb and started feeding 8mm pellet over the top at a rate of 4 every 30 seconds, I was also pinging meat up the edge of the spit and throwing it down the edge to my right. It took 45 mins before my first proper indication and a brief pull and drop back saw me hitting thin air, a similar occurrence on the next cast saw me taking off the ½ oz bomb I had been using and swapping it for a 3/4oz bomb. I also wound a decent curve into the quiver tip and was rewarded with carp no.1 taking the bait within 4 minutes of it touching bottom. This was followed by another 2 on the bomb on the next half an hour but it then went quiet for 2 hours again. Throughout this I tried changing hookbaits; feeding and it tried the pellet wag to no avail (although I did miss a couple on the wag) before another 3 fish made an appearance with 40 mins before another blank spell then in the last hour another 3 carp on the bomb and 2 skimmers one on the bomb and one down the edge and a lost lump from the spit and my match was over.
The scales said that my 9 carp and 2 skimmers went 89lb 2oz and this was enough for 5th on the day but that lost lump cost me a section default!!!!!
Lessons learnt:
Feeding is important not just what but how much and how often, I do not think I fed enough up the spit so did not attract in enough carp.
I need to be less accurate with my casting on the bomb and explore the whole feed area as I cannot feed on a dustbin lid so why should I be casting just to the one spot?
With it being a big fish match I should really have put in a paste line somewhere!!
Finally the Browning Force range of rods are brilliant bits of kit, the bomb dealt with some decent fish very easily.
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