Viaduct WL Round 3 12/02/12

For this round I was on Campbell but due to the recent cold snap there were areas that I wanted to avoid. The end closest to the car park was largely free from ice due to the aerator having been on for the last few days, but I was not sure if this would help as it would have been pouring cold water into that end. The far end had been under a lid for a few days so would be very thick but I thought that a few silvers might show under it. as it turned out Trev drew me 113, now I was quite excited about this until I saw it as it has produced two decent weights in the last 2 rounds both on running line. It had a proper lid on it when I got to it and due to the fact that it is about 8m behind the pegs to either side I needed to break the ice to around 16m by my guess, being weak however I only managed about 11m but thought that if I concentrated on the numbers of tiny fish I should be able to weigh something in. To that end I mixed a small amount of Browning Etang with some black dye and then plumbed up a light bread rig, a maggot rig and a perch rig for down the edge in the branches of the trees.

I started on bread for the first hour without a bite, then decided to concentrate on my groundbait line as a few skimmers had come in but again no indications. I tried a look on my caster edge line, dobbed bread in every nook and cranny around my peg and twitched a piece of worm across nearly every inch of my swim none of these even produced a line bite and at the end of the match my nets were dragged from the water empty.....

I reported my failure to the rest of the team as all I had really needed to do was catch something but mine was not the only tale of woe, Trev on peg 3 had lost 3 carp due to the ice, Pez had struggled in a corner peg on lodge after some creative ice breaking, Stu got to watch John Moody pull a couple of lumps out of Cary whilst his tip remained motionless and finally John dobbed a mid double out of peg 9 for a team saving performance. Thankyou John, we are still in 5^th and only 2 points behind 3^rd so it is all still to play for over the last 2 rounds.