Sunday 18/01/2015 - Viaduct Winter League - Round One - All Lakes

Today saw the start of the Viaduct Winter League 2015 with 19 teams of 5 fishing five matches with each team member fishing all five Lakes.

The Silverfox Team remained unchanged from last year with Bela Bakos, Steve Skelton, Leon Hubbard, Gordon Cannings and me.

Bela and I stopped at Canards Well for breakfast and luckily Chef Kim was there to do the buffet otherwise it can be hit or miss.

On down to the pub for the draw where Bela drew for us even though we were planning to sack him after the draws he delivered last year! Luckily the Captain did well bringing us all good draws. Not only that I would have placed the anglers on the pegs they were allocated.

I was to fish peg 47 on Match Lake (pictured right) which I was happy with because last time I fished it I had 45lb of F1’s and Carp on the waggler. So the waggler was quickly untangled and the hook length changed to 0.14 with a 20 hook. Next I set up the straight lead – in case. Finally I set up a yellow top 4x12 Jolly to be fished at 11.5 metres which is about all I can manage these days at 11 o clock into the dark water. I started by feeding a sizable pot of caster and chopped worm in on the pole line and started on the waggler with a single white maggot without feeding anything to see what was about. However, the wind was coming more in from my right making presentation difficult. I thus put and extra foot on the bottom to slow the float down which resulted in a small Ronnie. After 10 minutes I couldn’t help myself and started to feed caster. This helped and now with double dead red maggot on the hook I had a couple of F1’s and three small Carp. Because it was so bright this spooked the fish allowing the Ronnie’s to have a go. I had seven species of Silvers before I had another F1. I then foul hooked a Carp which broke my hook length – bugger. As the match progressed the sun, both low in the sky and on the water became a nuisance and for twenty minutes I couldn’t see a thing, so I picked up the straight lead with a bunch of dead reds and cast it blindly and if I hear a plop I would leave it if not I pulled it off the island! I had one small Rudd on the lead. Once the sun had gone down this left me 15 minutes for the waggler again and I caught a Ronnie a cast with a decent Perch included. At halfway I did have an unproductive go for a very short while on the pole but as suspected 11.5 metres was far too short.

 

I finished with 6lb 11oz of Silvers and 15lb 9oz of Carp for a total of 22lb 4oz for 14 points out of 19. Happy with the result, fishing the waggler very enjoyable, but especially as the team did well from the good draw collecting 65 points with Leon framing with 108lb and picking up the Captains bottle of wine.

The match was won by Craig Edmonds (pictured right) with 154lb 1oz from Lodge peg 73. Craig fished bread down his right hand margin starting at 14.5 metres then creeping longer until he was fishing 17.5 metres down to the tree trunk (pictured lower right)

The Silvers was won by Lee Werrett (pictured lower right) with a lowly 13lb 2oz from Spring Lake peg 26. Lee caught Skimmers on various methods.

Full Result:

1. Craig Edmonds 154-01-0 peg 73
2. A Mitchell 123-07-0 peg 66
3. Nicky Collins 116-0-0 peg 132
4. John Howell 113-13-0 peg 110
5. Leon Hubbard 108-08-0 peg 96
6. Richard Ahearn 90-09-0peg 119

Top Silvers:

1. Lee Werrett 13-02-0 peg 26
2. Chris Hook 12-13-0 peg 90
3. Gary O’Shea12-04-0 peg 20