Wednesday 19/06/2013 - Tony Rixon and Mike Nicholls Top Five - Viaduct - Campbell lake

Tim Ford joined the four of us today in our lodge (pictured right on our balcony) for three days of fishing (plus eating and drinking). Tim is always great company and chirpy I can’t remember ever seeing him any other way. The morning was glorious, a proper English June day was promised and received with gratitude. Apparently it is predicted to be the best day of 2013 – hope not.

 

Went to the Viaduct café to find it closed so we ended up in the café in the square in Somerton Village. The weather allowed us to Al Fresco and a great breakfast we had too.

 

This is the second year now that Tony and I have organised a top five match (Tony did do all the work). With twenty of us on Campbell I was expecting it to fish really well and none of us were disappointed. I think there is a lesson to be learnt by a lot of anglers with very few fish being foul hooked.

 

In to the draw carton and out comes peg 129. I was hoping to be around the 116/115 (as were the majority of Silvers anglers). That said I wasn’t disappointed as I would have been if I had drawn pegs 129 to 131.

 

Mark drew peg 123 (peg I have yet still to draw). Tim peg 119, Martyn 116, Glenn 112. So some good pegs for the Lodgers.

 

The plan was to start on meat with the 4x14 Jolly for the Silvers and later on to the paste in the margins over caster for the Tench. As with all best laid plans the never work out as you would like, especially if nature is involved. So with the Jolly and two paste rigs set up. I was soon ready.

 

I started by feeding five pieces of 8mm meat (I was thinking it was a bit too big – I would have felt more comfortable with 6mm). I was expecting a bite first or second put in, but it didn’t happen. The Silvers weren’t going to play – bugger. I then fed the LH margin heavily with caster and some micro and went out to 5 metres with paste kindered with a few hard 4’s. I was soon landing my first Carp. After four or so carp it went quite so I started a RH margin swim towards the spit, were there was obviously a lot of Carp albeit on the smaller side. It looked as if the fish were looking for another spawn. By switching between the two swims I kept Carp coming on the paste. However, the RH margin was very snaggy especially under the deadly brambles. I lost a good few fish down there as well as a couple of rigs. I kept trying the safer LH margin for the Silvers but only added two Tench and two Skimmers. I did have an 8lb Common in the landing net and because of the weakness I have in my hands due to the arthritis I let the landing net slip round and the fish fell back, which was crucial on the day and cost me second place. Looking at the results in general at the fishery it’s becoming more important to make sure you land every fish especially for the sake of playing them for another couple of minutes, it sometimes can become arm to arm combat in the landing net some of these commons are stronger than my hands.

 

 I had quite a few Carp but as I said luckily they were on the small side. My few Silvers weighed 8lb 10oz and my Carp (about 30) weighed 150lb for a match third 158lb 10oz.

 

The match was won by matey Glenn Bailey from peg 112 (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 174lb 5oz. Glenn caught on paste at 5 metres at 12 o clock and around in a 5 metre arc into the RH margin.

 

The Silvers was won by Dan White from peg 121 with a mainly Tench catch for 36lb 7oz. Dan caught in both his margins using meat over meat.

 

Full Result:

 

1.      Glenn Bailey 174-05-0 peg 112

2.      Tony Rixon 167-02-0 peg 135

3.      Mike Nicholls 158-10-0 peg 128

4.      Dean Malin 154-13-0 peg 114

5.      Alex Murray 150-02-0 peg 110

6.      Nick Ewers 148-15-0 peg 115

 

Top Silvers:

 

1.      Dan White 36-07-0 peg 121

2.      Martin Woodington 29-07-0 peg 116

3.      Scott Puddy 26-05-0 peg 125

 

Weigh Sheets Follow (14 ton weights out of 20 – Impressive):