Wednesday 22/02/2017 - Viaduct Silver Match - Spring, Middle and Lodge Lakes

I had been looking at the progress of storm Doris and it looked if my Thursday match would be a no go with wind speeds up to 60 mph. So was delighted when I received a text from Bela on Tuesday asking if I wanted to fish Viaduct Silvers match on the Wednesday, The weather was to be reasonable so went for it. We left early but still found plenty of traffic about. Breakfasted in Cannards Well – was OK once they put on the lights!

A good turn out with 20 Skivers and 2 Pensioners. Steve spread us over Lodge, Spring and Middle. The wind wasn’t too bad but preferred it off my back as I wanted to fish the waggler. I got my wish pulling peg 25, first time on this peg. I have always wanted to draw peg 24 especially when it was a noted Silvers peg, but as time has gone by things have changed in this respect. For company I had the affable Alex Murry who had drawn 24. Directly behind me was the Lodge we will be occupying in June. Bela drew his normal crap peg 38 on Middle, Christ he can draw crap.

I set up the Ronnie rig, a on the drop 4x12 F1 Winter to fish at 10 metres, the waggler and a GB feeder to cast over the caster in the latter part of the match. On the all-in I fed some caster out as far as I could, letting the wind decide where they would fish as it was gusting all over the place. I fed a tester knub of very light GB laced with Pinkie at 10 metres for the F1 rig. I decided to start on the Ronnie rig with caster over caster to catch any “low hanging fruit”. So after catching about 1lb of small Ronnie’s it died. So went out on the pole and had a few hand size Skimmers, most on the drop, so didn’t leave it in long before another put-in. The tow was right to left and at times quite fast, strange really as the wind was over my right shoulder. Re-fed and tried my banker – the waggler. With single caster I started to catch Ronnie’s which was OK as I initially expected this. These soon tailed off expecting to start catching some quality Skimmers. Unfortunately after a couple of hours trying I had only the one 2lb Hybrid. Alex was also struggling on 24. I couldn’t see pegs 19 and 18 (the other pegs in our section) due to the bush on the right, but Alex could and said they were bagging on the feeder. So I chucked it out with double dead reds. All I could get was small Ronnie’s ragging it on the drop. Until they got fed up with me bombarding them with it. Subsequently sat there motionless. Andy Power then started to bag on quality fish on peg 3 both the long pole and waggler fishing shallow. No chance of coin today, so I decided to sit the rest of the match out at 10 metre this after toying with going longer but decided to preserve my aching back. I caught small fish regularly mostly Skimmers and Hybrids until the end with double Pinkie over light GB.

I weighed 13lb 8oz which was a tad disappointing Alex just piping me with 14lb 10oz. Still a very enjoyable match.

The venue fished exceptionally well with 25lb plus to win a section. Brilliant Silvers venue.

The match was won by Andy Power (pictured right) with 56lb 14oz from peg 3. Andy had a very slow start and it wasn’t until he started to heavily loose feed casters over both his pole line and waggler line that he started to catch. Andy came shallow on the pole and caught about 10lb of Roach, a Tench and a decent Perch. He switched to the waggler again with caster hook catching decent Skimmers off bottom. Andy kept the fish coming until the end switching between the pole and waggler. Andy impressed me today which left me wondering why he’s not in the Team England set-up.

It was a perfect end to a perfect day for Bela and I because we had a great fish supper in Winstones on the way home, plus a few beers in Bar-gar-age.

I went to go in the back door and found a Frog staring up at me on the door step. Not the Special One I hope. Luckily not, but Bela kissed it in case!!

Full Result:

1. Andy Power 56-14-0 peg 3
2. Rich Aherne 54-06-0 peg 19
3. Tom Thick 46-03-0 peg 56
4. Scott Russell 33-11-0 peg 1
5. Ben Hagg 33-05-0 peg 18
6. Steve Kedge 25-14-0 peg 33

Weigh Sheet: