Friday 9 May 2014

Thursday 08/05/2014 - Viaduct Fishery Cost Cutter and Campbell and Carey

Glenn Bailey was keen to try the Thursday Viaduct cost cutter today and with Huntstrete fishing inconsistently, I was easily swayed to join him away from the Coffin Dodgers. After breakfast in Cannards Well where I hear that a previous guest was heard to say “You know what, there’s a real “Well” in the bar – She served me this morning”!!

The Gimp originally started the Thursday Cost Cutter as an alternative to Huntstrete and even though there are a good few Coffin Dodgers in attendance there are also some skivers which made the numbers up to 31 today so we were spread over both Campbell and Carey.

My plan was to try and qualify for the Silvers final. So if I was drawn on Carey that would be my quarry, if Campbell Carp. In to the draw tin and out comes peg 102 on Carey. Happy with this as there is usually plenty of Silvers in this area which can be caught short. There were plenty of warnings about my plan from this peg with only 18lb winning the Silvers on Carey the day before due to the Silvers spawning, for which there was plenty of margin evidence. Plus Steve Long said there were plenty of Carp down the margins. Silvers it was then!

Two rigs for 5 metres – 4x14 jolly for 8mm meat and a 0.3 gram Silverfox PC paste float. For the margins my Ronnie rig and a 0.2 Silverfox PC paste float.

Whilst shotting one of the floats I had a 3lb Skimmer take the bare hook. Was this a sign of plenty of Skimmers short?

I started by feeding two balls of Gimps Gold at 5 metres and fishing paste over it whilst loose feeding casters down the LH margin. First put in I landed a 15lb Mirror Carp. Second put in another Carp taking my weight to 25lb!! Next put in I foul hooked a Carp which can be Bum clenching, luckily the 0.18 G Line hook length separated us. Fourth put in and at last my quarry a 2 ½ lb Skimmer. That was it; even though I tried topping up with GB all I could get was small fish nibbling at the paste. So I decided to convert the line to meat feeding some micro meat with a dash of 8mm and fishing 8 mm on the hook. This produced exactly the same nibblers.

Time to try the margin with the Ronnie rig and caster. I fished it quite hard but found it really slow catching a few of most Silvers species except Skimmers. I would catch a few then it would go quiet for long spells. With 40 minutes to go it went completely dead so I tried the paste over the caster and I was soon obvious why the Silvers had vacated as in my last six put-ins I hooked six Carp losing two. My six Accidental Carp weighed 63lb 15oz and my Silvers a miserable 12lb 8oz for a total of 77lb 7oz.

 I admit I got it back to front today and should have fished for Carp. That said I don’t think I would have threatened the top three framers. In mitigation I was really out of touch with the fishery as I haven’t fished it since the Winter League. I must get down more.

The match and the Silvers was won by fellow “OAP” Paul Blake (pictured above) with a 38lb 14oz of Tench and with his carp getting to a total of 255lb 4oz from peg 119. What paste is to me meat is to Paul. Paul caught all his fish at either 5 metres both out in front and down his RH margin catching on 10 mm meat hook bait using three tins of SPAM including feed throughout the match. Well done matey can still show the youth how to do it.

Full Result:

  1. Paul Blake 255-04-0 peg 119
  2. Mash 244-09-0 peg 85
  3. Dan White 238-05-0 peg 86
  4. Keith Ashby 187-11-0 peg 125
  5. Ryan Jordan 169-08-0 peg 110
  6. Gary Flinders 165-0-0 peg 80
Top Silvers:

  1. Paul Blake 38-14-0 peg 119
  2. Keith Ashby 31-12-0 peg 125
  3. Vic Nugent 27-12-0 peg 123
Weigh Sheets:




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