Viaduct open, 13/12/14

I decided on a little trip to Viaduct today to start getting ready for the winter league next month, I arrived a bit earlier than I had planned only to find out that there were only 3 booked in for the day, not the best start.  It then got worst when the Langport Christmas match got cancelled from the river so we got moved off of Campbell, Rolly had turned up by now and we were waiting on number 3.  We waited 30 minutes and in the end decided to start without the third person, we also moved on to the far side of Lodge opposite the guys on the Langport match.  I was on 59 and Rolly was on 62.

My plan was simple, try to catch an early carp and then aim for skimmers, I decided on a 14.5m groundbait and dead maggot line, a 14m caster and corn line next to the rope that holds onto the aerator, 2 margin lines, a bomb and a waggler rod both got set up as well.  I was ready (almost) for the nominal all-in and we decided to start almost at the same time, I potted 4 balls of groundbait with caster and dead maggot in it on the long pole line, as I had been plumbing up I had found a small slope and my plan was to fish halfway down it so that I had a semi hard bottom to fish on. I fed my rope line with 50 caster and 20 grains of corn and chucked a bread hookbait out into the open water to my right.

After 40 fruitless minutes on the bomb I tried the waggler set at 3 feet deep and baited with 3 maggots, this gave me a small skimmer but I soon had enough as small roach were ragging the hookbait nearly every chuck. I shipped out on my skimmer line with 2 dead reds and it slipped under almost straight away, skimmer number 1 was soon in the keepnet it was followed by a couple of smaller fish so I topped up and tried the rope line. A missed bite and small roach later I topped it up and started to rotate around all my lines, I even started the two margin lines about an hour and a half into the match to try and make something happen quicker. There was an hour long spell when I managed 5 decent skimmers, 1 on meat that I started feeding next to the rope and the rest on dead red over the groundbait.

I managed another quick run of smaller hybrids and a pound perch in the last 10 minutes but other than that the day was quite uneventful. The weigh in was quick, I had 10lb 12oz and Rolly had 9lb 12oz so that last gasp perch was very handy, Rolly had caught far more fish than me but fewer of the bonus skimmers, he had been fishing live maggot on the hook.

It was a cold but enjoyable day and I have learnt a lot ready for the winter league next year.

What would I do different?

To be honest not a lot, I think that next time I will have a softer waggler rod and also a hair on for bigger baits to avoid the tiny roach.