Sunday 29/01/2012 - Viaduct Teams of Five Winter League - Round Two - All Lakes

When it comes to food Bela is very territorial, so for safety reasons we switched from queuing, fight for your self at the Globe to the Canards Well table service. I must say it was a good breakfast plus it was hot and the brown sauce was in a bottle (I hate those plastic sachets). But, we nearly didn’t get there, as on the way Bela’s van lost power. So applying my computer knowledge we switched the engine off and on again – bingo, no more problems for the rest of the way there and back.

Bela and I were talking about the pegs we might draw and Bela could only talk about peg 15 as he keeps drawing this peg on Spring Lake. Tom Mangnel came back with a decent draw (his golden arm is back). Bela was over the moon to be on – peg 15 AGAIN!! With myb turn on Match Lake I was even happier to be put on peg 43 – F1 city. For neighbours I had Dave Roper on peg 42 and Tom Thick on peg 44.

I was slightly concerned how the overnight frost might affect the fishing as Match Lake is usually the first to suffer from the cold weather as it’s the shallowest of all the Lakes. I set up the waggler and straight lead, finally the pole to be fished at 13 metres with a 4x12 Jolly. On the whistle I fed a small ball of GB with a few loose Pinkies at thirteen metres, I didn’t have a bite on this line, only indications from very tiny Ronnie’s, so this was shelved. So it was out on the waggler with double Pinkie hook bait and – nothing. Clayton Hudson on end peg 40 was soon in to fish on the lead with bread hook bait as was the lad on peg 45. Both were catching well whilst I sat bite less for the first hour. I was having difficulty in see the red top float, plus it wasn’t heavy enough. The Drake waggler I selected was a tad too long for the depth of water so I took the razor blade to it, shortening and whitening the tip with tippex. I also reduced the drop shot from 4x11 to 1x11. It was necessary to re-shot the waggler so I cast it half way and couldn’t believe I had a bite and landed a 1lb Skimmer – at least I was off the mark even though it was accidental. Out to the far bank with double white maggot (I choose white because of Clayton catching on bread) and I started catching F1’s regularly for an hour. Even though I was fishing well beyond feeding distance, I still couldn’t help loosing feeding casters through the catty. The swim died for a while until I caught three consecutive Carp – one 4oz, one 1lb and finally one 3lb. Flowing this I had a real hard hour waiting for the F1’s to return, which they did for the last ¾ hour. I was surprised that the F1’s and Carp weighed in at 37lb 4oz. I must admit I thought I had far less. F1’s fight twice their weight and weigh twice my estimate. Adding my 1lb 3oz of Silvers my total came to 38lb 7oz which was good enough for a Lake win. I was surprised at this because the first six pegs of Spring Lake are included in with Match Lake, which have been throwing up ton weighs of big Carp.

With Tom Mangnel coming third on his Lake and Bela third on his the team managed to muster 61 points which was good enough for joint third on the day even though Fabio blanked on peg 87 on Carey.

The match was won by Dave Cockayne (pictured right with the Silvers winner) from peg 115 with 126lb 14oz. Dave caught on the lead with meat feeding – NOTHING! Dave’s catch consisted of 25 Carp.

The Silvers was won by Des Shipp with 26lb 11oz from Lodge peg 61 (it was a case of us switching pegs that we fished the last match). Des caught on the pole fished at 16 metres with caster hook bait over GB and caster and the waggler fished with maggot over loose fed caster.

Full Result:

1.      Dave Cockayne 126-14-0 peg 115

2.      Dan “The Dude” Squires 111-03-0 peg 8

3.      John Darby 110-0-0 peg 64

4.      Dave White 90-11-0 peg 102

5.      Nick Chedsoy 87-05-0 peg 113

6.       Alan Oram 78-05-0 peg 114

Top Silvers:

1.      Des Shipp 26-11-0 peg 61

2.      Bob Gullick 25-02-0 peg 60

3.      Rowland Lucas 14-01-0 peg 68

Top Teams on the day:

1.      Viaduct Select 74 points

2.      Thatcher’s Veterans 62

3.      Silverfox TM 61

4.      Viaduct All-stars 61

5.      Thatcher’s PI  60

6.      4 way tie – Avon Angling, Moaning Maggots, Somerset Angling and Somerset Magic 58

Teams to date:

1.      Viaduct Select 128

2.      Somerset Angling 124

3.      Toss potts 122

4.      Avon Angling 10

….

12. Silverfox TM 94