Sunday 03/02/2013 - Viaduct Teams of Five Winter League - All Lakes - Round One

Today was the start of the Viaduct Winter League - Teams of Five. However, Silverfox TM had to make some last minute adjustments because Phil “Fabio” Harding broke his arm skating down his outside stairs. Captain Tom Mangnall drafted in a good experienced replacement - Jamie Parkhouse.

 

The league is a sell out with 19 teams of five fishing – 95 anglers.

 

The weather was promised to be 10 degrees with little to no rain and less wind than we have had recently and that’s what we got – is the winter coming to a close – hope so.

 

Before the draw it was nice to see some of the old faces especially Rob Jones who has been out of angling for a while because he broke his leg falling off a ladder. He is fishing with a team from deepest Wales. With one of his team mated driving up from Pembrokeshire (also know as little England) to be precise Milford Haven he left at 03-30 – fair play I say – I hope he caught a few so that the drive home wasn’t too despondent – I know Rob Jones would catch wherever he drew.

 

Tom Mangnall came back with our draw. Well Lord Sugar would have fired him for drawing this crap:

 

Steve Skelton peg 111

Jamie Parkhouse peg 77

Tom Mangnall peg 5

Bela peg 38

Me peg 105

 

The upshot of this was Tom, Bela and I weren’t really drawn on the Lake we were competing against.

 

That’s enough of the team stuff. For me it meant I wouldn’t get to fish my favourite Lake - Lodge and I would have two matches on Carey – not a good start for the overall individual league placing perspective.

 

There were five of us in the overspill from Lodge Lake. I was hoping the Ronnie’s would feed as I didn’t fancy my chances of catching Carp. So I set up the waggler which before the all in looked a good option, however, because of the nasty skimming wind that started to hit my peg close in it didn’t get fished. I decide on a 4x12 Perch rig for the RH margin near a bit of cover from some bank side weed. However, having tried it a few times this line was abandoned. Next I set up a paste rig to be fished down near to the platform leg of empty peg 106. I did have a float tremble but that was all from this rig. So it was down to the 4x14 jolly to do the business at 9 meters.

 

I started by feed a very small ball of my Ronnie GB laced with some Pinkie and luckily enough I had a bite first put on a nearly dead red and netting my first 2oz Ronnie. This set the scene for the rest of the match, catching Ronnie’s between 2 and 3oz regularly throughout the five hours. I did lose a couple of bonus Silvers which I believe was Perch, but made amends with a 2lb Tench and a 1lb Skimmers. Come the final whistle I weighed 11lb 6oz of Silvers (1lb 6oz more than our captain’s target). This left me with 13 points out of 19. I certainly would have settled for this before the start.

 

The match was won by that nice man Nicky Ewers (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 119lb 15oz from peg 123. Nicky caught all his Carp on the straight lead fished around his peg including the end margin using either corn or meat hook bait. Nicky fed nothing.

 

The Silvers was won by the Dude from peg 42 with 23lb 7oz, comprising of mainly Skimmers to 3lb. The Dude caught on the pole up to the aerator fishing worm over CW&C.

 

Bela had to get home early because of his angle bracelet so I didn’t get the team result. However, the section sheets are shown below to work it out your selves.

 

Full Result:

 

1.      Nick Ewers 119-15-0 peg 123

2.      Dave Romain 97-01-0 peg 86

3.      Dave White 96-11-0 peg 119

4.      Dave Stacey 79-06-0 peg 102

5.      Keith (Mash) Mashadar 75-12-0

6.      Barry Fitchew 65-11-0  peg 99

 

Top Silvers:

 

1.      Dan “The Dude” Squires 23-07-0 peg 42

2.      Mark Williams14-12-0 peg 25

3.      John Buickingham14-04-0 peg 26