Saturday 09/05/2009 - Maver Pairs - Viaduct Fishery

Steve Long and Paul Greenwood run excellent matches at this venue, it helps when the organisers know the pegs so well. A special mention today for Paul who had the task of sorting out the anomalies in the Angling Times Maver Pairs ticket letter. The letter implied that we could place our Anglers – I have never heard of this before – luckily Paul applied good common match fishing sense to it all and all went well. Well done matey. The match was split in to four sections of either nine or eight Anglers with two sections (A section) spread over Campbell/Match with two pegs on Spring and Carey and Spring (B section).

Today my partner was Bela Bacos who was elected (by me) to fish B section and I drew him peg 24 on Spring. This peg does have some Silvers form! I drew peg 124 on Campbell, which is an excellent Silvers peg. However, I agreed with Bela that we should fish for Carp to stand any chance of winning the pairs. I started on the paste at 13 metres and had eight Carp to 10lb in the first two hours. This was looking good in my section and across the whole Lake. I had been feeding corn in the right hand margin since the beginning and was itching to give it a try. However, I persevered with the paste, which on hindsight was a mistake. I should have gone in to the margin for the Silvers at this point. I stuck with the team plan until the last twenty minutes or so after adding just two more Carp. During this short time the fishing was manic landing big Tench and Bream on corn. I weighed a total of 94lb 3oz for second in the section and second overall and a pick up of £80. During the last twenty minutes I managed to put 33lb 6oz of Silvers in the net; If only, I had switched at the two hour mark!!

With out fear of contradiction I say that the Viaduct Campbell Lake is the premier Tench Match Fishery in the South West, with ton and near ton weights common this time of year.

The match and my section was won by Alex Murray (pictured right with part of his all Carp catch) with 106lb 12oz from peg 126. Alex caught on the waggler and full depth with 10mm hard pellet on the hook. Alex caught most of his fish in the last two hours of the five hour match.

The Maver pairs was won by Ian Hudson and Simon Jones (pictured bottom right – Ian left – Simon right) with two sections wins and just the two penalty points. Both drew corner pegs; Ian drew peg 41 on Match Lake and weighed 24lb 6oz (1 point) and Simon peg 109 on Carey and weighed 67lb 12oz (1 point). Well done lads. 

Oh, and my partner Bela DNW’d (I understand he did have about 5lb of Silvers).

Full Result:

1.      Alex Murray 106-12-0 peg 126

2.      Mike Nicholls 94-03-0 peg 124

3.      Martin Wright 91-04-0 peg 86

4.      Gary Wall 90-03-0 peg 111

5.      Nicky Ewers 84-14-0 peg 127

6.      Chris Davis 82-14-0 peg 85

Pairs Result:

1.      Simon Jones & Ian Hudson 2 penalty points

2.      Alex Murray & Matt Parsons 3 penalty points – overall weight of 176-04-0

3.      Paul Carpenter & Jeff Andrews 3 penalty points – overall weight 79-09-0