Viaduct Open, 19/12/12

It was off to Viaduct for the Wednesday open mainly as a team outing so that the powers that be could pay the team entry for the teams of 5 next month, I was a little surprised when at the fishery it turned out that there would only be 6 anglers fishing!!

Myself, Stu Dabbs, John Dewberry, Dave George, Nic Mac (all from Browning Andover) and local angler Rolly, this was going to be an interesting day, I had no idea where to draw at the start and peg 124 stuck in my little mit, much to everyone’s dismay as it was apparently the flyer. I have however, ruined them before here so I was not too optimistic.

My plan was simple for the day, no one was pegged to my left and before the start I had seen several carp crash towards that bank, therefore I decided to fish the bomb and waggler in that direction and I also put in a pole line at 6m down the edge to my left as a backup although this never came into play so I shall ignore it for today.

My bomb rig was a 10ft commercial bomb with a 035 Ultimatch reel loaded with 0.20mm Cenex Feeder line, a running bomb and a 12 inch hooklength of 0.18mm Cenex to a 14 QM1 and a quick stop. I was going to fish meat and bread on this rig, I also set up a 6g waggler set at full depth to a 0.12mm bottom and a size 18 hook to fish maggot and explore the peg.

At the all in I fed the pole line and cast out the bomb setting my stopwatch for 20 minutes, I need not have bothered as by the end of the first hour I had 4 Carp in the net all on chunks of yellow meat for around 12lb. It got harder in the middle part of the match with not alot getting caught anywhere, Dave opposite had the wind off his back and was able to feed a little bit of bait, this seemed to help him get a few bites but his fish were very small for Viaduct. I messed around with the waggler for a while and managed to pick up 3 fish on it but I also lost 2 foul hookers so in the last hour I went back out on the bomb, it was like turning on a switch as in the last half an hour I managed to land another 4 Carp all on meat. And that was it, Dave and I had caught a few carp, I had 11 and I think he had around 13 or 14, but everyone to my right had struggled to get the fish and Rolly on peg 114 had tipped back at the end. The scales came around and my clicker said that I had around 52lb; the scales said that it was 65lb odd this was enough for the match win as Daves carp only went 62lb so they were alot smaller. As for the rest, Stu on peg 126 managed to pick up a few better skimmers to take the silverfish pot with 15lb, he also had a brace of carp to 25lb which I think was enough for third. John had managed to snare 5 carp from the end peg on my bank but it was not enough, and |Nick cast to the wrong side of his peg all day and struggled.

It was a good giggle if a little wet and windy, but it was a good warmer for the teams of 5 coming next year.