Sunday 15/08/2010 - Carps AC - Viaduct - Campbell Lake - John Bennett's Birthday Match

This was a specially arranged match for Life President of Carps AC – John Bennett who was Seventy yesterday. John put on some drinks (none alcoholic) and sticky buns - with Bela Bakos eating most of them.

Being a sell out, all the pegs were in, plus two of the end pegs. I decided to wait until the draw before deciding on whether to go for the Silvers, Carp or a bit of both. Out came peg 119 which I was initially happy with. The light wind was blowing in to the opposite end bank so thought it might have been better to draw 110! Apparently the angler on peg 119 the day before had only two Carp, even so I decided on an out and out paste attack. Setting up two paste rigs one for the RH margin and the other for 13 metres towards the far end margin and with an additional inch would also suit for fishing at 11.5 metres at 2 o clock. I marked the two settings on the line with a permanent black marker pen – the shallower setting under the float and the deeper above the float. However, I have found that the depth has to be altered from time to time to adjust to; firstly the silt gouging by the fish plus I have noticed that the float does move down the line when under pressure whilst playing fish.

I fed the two long swims with a 125ml mix of micro and hard 4’s. I then started to loose feed wetted 8’s in to the RH margin. Unusually I started by dropping in to the margin to see if the bubbling was a fish or gas – “Gas Head”. Out on the 2 o clock swim with paste and it was very unusual for this venue, no fizzing, in fact no signs of any fish. The float surprisingly just sat there until I had a proper bite and a Carp in the net, no swirling, nibbling or movement of any kind. It was clear that there wasn’t many Silvers feeding in the swim this was also supported when I had two big Perch on paste, one of them was regurgitating motherless minnows in the landing net. I kept feeding and swapping between the two lines and kept the odd Carp coming. At half way stage I decided to try 16 metres to the top bank with corn, so after preparation and feeding a pot of corn out I went to the “Clump” and had a 2lb Skimmer first put in, I was then pestered by Ronnie’s so decided to close the ball breaking line down. I kept trying the margin which only yielded one Carp and an F1. The most productive swim was the 13 metre line and stayed with it until the end which yielded a good run of Carp in the last half hour. I sensed that the fish were starting to either arrive in the peg or it was the time of day for a munch. Surprisingly I weighed 100lb 10oz for tenth in the match!! That said I did enjoy the match especially as I had good company with Alan Oram on peg 118 and Charlie Barns on peg 121, both quality anglers. "Charlie every time I hear you say Vermin I think you are playing a Rat - now thats Vermin"!!

The match was won by Andy Lloyd (pictured right with the gormless Silvers winner) from peg 128 with 244lb 10oz. Andy had approximately 55 fish with 50 % coming from fishing shallow at 13 metres and the other 50% from the margin of his RH spit using the same rig. Andy fished hair rigged 8mm hard pellet fish over loose fed 8’s, Andy fed 8 pints throughout. I could see Andy from my peg – what a bagger with a very interesting style of playing fish.

The Silvers was won by Charlie Barns with 25lb 4oz using corn over GB from peg 121. Plus some "Vermin"!

Full Result:

1. Andrew Lloyd 244-10-0 peg 128
2. Chris Davis 169-09-0 peg 124
3. John Paige 156-12-0 peg 114
4. Steve Denmead 135-14-0 peg 115
5. Shane Caswell 133-10-0 peg 129
6. Alan Oram 121-14-0 peg 118
….
10. Mike Nicholls 100-10-0 peg 119

Top Silvers:

1. Charlie Barns 25-04-0 peg 121
2. Paul Lock 25-03-0 peg 130
3. Dick Bull 20-0-0 peg 123