17/01/2013 Viaduct Winter League

I got called in to fish this match as Stu was going to be unavailable, I took his place and Trev drew me out 110 on Campbell. In the summer and last year I would have been happy with this draw but all of the carp in Campbell had been shoaled up in front of peg 116 for a few months and the guy on the peg in the open  the day before had caught a carp and then tipped back!!

Unperturbed I started to set up a tackle shops worth of kit, a bomb rod for meat or bread, a waggler to fish maggot around the peg, a pellet waggler set at half depth to suspend a bit of punched meat, a margin pole rig and a skimmer rig to fish at 14.5m in front of me. I started the match as normal with 4 balls of groundbait on the pole line before I decided to explore around the peg with the deck waggler and maggot. I stuck it out for nearly 30 minutes for 3 tiny roach before I chucked the bomb out for 2 casts with no real signs of life. I went out on the pole line and struggled for a few small skimmers and roach and was going nowhere until I started casting the waggler and maggot to the middle of the lake for a few roach. The margin was unproductive and a waste of time but I did learn a few things by drawing the wrong end of the lake.

1) Sometimes there are just no carp!!

2) Take a lighter waggler rod for roach fishing

3) Don’t feed too much on a winter carp line, although I did not feed alot down the margin, after a couple of hours I felt that I should not have fed anything and just felt my way into the swim!!

I finished the day with 4lb dead and this was good enough for 3 points out of a possible 19.  150lb + won the lake and this was from 116, well done Mark.

The team suffered from a bad draw with 3 of us picking up 3 points, a 5 and John  Dewberry saving us with 16 points I believe.

Viaduct open,5 Jan 13

For this match I drew 97 on Cary, this is in my mind a good peg as it give you lots of open water to go at and therefore lots of options, I also had a blank peg to my left and had to put a swim down there so I set up the following kit:

10ft Commercial bomb rod with an Ultimatch 035, 8lb mainline to a 0.18mm bottom baited with either a lump of meat on a 14 QM1 or bread popped up between 6 and 12”. The bomb was running freely on the mainline and I use a snap swivel to attach the hooklength for speed. I decided to feed a meat line in a depression at 25m, for this I rigged up a 13ft CC Super match with a Black magic 030FD loaded with 4lb reel line to a 0.14mm Cenex hooklength; this had a 16 PR36 and a quick stop to hold the meat on the hair under a loaded 4AA straight waggler. My other waggler rod was a Superlight Match with the same reel and line but a larger loaded float to fish maggot up in the water at long range.  I also set up my Z9 at 14.5 m to fish a silver fish line, this had a 0.4g float on 0.16mm mainline to a 0.1 bottom and an 18 808hook, and this was set with Pink Cenex hollow elastic for the skimmers.

At the all in I fed 4 balls of groundbait on my skimmer line and then cast out the bomb baited with a large punched meat hookbait, I also started feeding meat on my waggler line and after about 10 minutes I had my first pull on the bomb and carp No1 was on its way to the landing net. That kind of set the tone as I managed 3 carp and a handful of silvers for around 30lb, all my carp came on the bomb, 2 on meat and one foul hooked on bread. My silvers all came on the pole line to dead maggot or caster. My weight was enough for a section win which was my entire bank but I was well off the winners on Campbell and some of the pegs opposite on Cary. Still it’s always nice to pick up a little.