Saturday 22/12/2018 - Viaduct Christmas Match - Campbell, Carey, Lodge, Match and Spring Lakes

Bela and I stopped at the usual Canards Well for breakfast, very good. Arrived at the fishery early and had time for a few chats. John Fuidge and me were watching plenty of fish activity on Lodge, place to draw I was thinking. Joe McMahon explained that Dad Martin had bought a new pole and has picked up in the Silvers the two times he's used it. Apparently Gordon Cannings asked whether it had come with instructions! If it did he must have left them home today!

With 72 fishing today the draw was going to be so important.

In to the draw coffee tin and out comes peg 10 on Spring, which is on the Monk and was working hard and making quite a noise.. As I had only prepared to fish for Silvers I was satisfied with this peg. It's a good caster and waggler peg. Got to the peg and found the wind was blowing in at me from 2 o'clock so manageable.

So the waggler erected, the Ronnie rig, a doubtful 4x12 to fish maggot at 10 metres over GB and the GB feeder. Started by feeding the Ronnie line with caster, similarly the waggler line and lastly the 10 metre line with just the investigatory ball of GB laced with LR's. Started on the Ronnie rig and had a 2 oz Hybrid first try. That was it with the caster. So tried the 10 metre line with maggot hook bait and started to catch small Ronnies. Looking around I couldn't see anyone catching. Thought I better try the waggler and caster which was my banker. I was missing bites and as the caster wasn't damaged it was either tiny Ronnies or Motherless Minnows. I did have a few Ronnies but no sign of Skimmers. Fishing either the waggler or the long line was too slow to build any sort of weight with the Ronnies so decided to feed some GB laced with Pinkie on the Ronnie line to see if I could get them close. This worked and started to get regular bites by topping up with small ball regularly. However, I knew that without Skimmers I wasn't going to get in the Silvers coin. So kept trying the waggler which I had been regularly topping up with caster. Again only missed bites and a few Ronnies. The angler on peg 11 had been fishing the waggler with corn so kept an eye on him in case he caught - he didn't. So I tried the GB feeder with an LR tipped with a Pinkie I was expecting the tip to register a small Ronnie straight away, bit amazingly it just sat there! The Lake was fishing awful and with anglers now packing up early I decided to finish the match on the Ronnies rig with the hope a Skimmer of four might come in over it.

I finished with about 150 Ronnie's for 11 b 1oz . I knew that I needed some better fish to frame. The highest Silvers weight on Spring was 12 lb!! The two anglers to my left DNW'd, Rob Parker on peg 8 won the Lake hamper with three Carp.

The match was won by Mark Wynne (pictured upper right with some of his catch) with an incredible weight of 179 lb 2 oz from Lodge peg 66. Mark caught down his LH edge using bread hook bait. I recently questioned whether peg 66 would still be a flyer Carp peg after it's sever tree pruning - so that was answered today. Well done Mark.

"Wynner gets his Turkey dinner"

The Silvers was won by Gary O'Shea (pictured right with his catch of Skimmers) with another spectacular weight from Lodge Lake of 45 lb 10 oz from peg 69. Gary caught on both corn and caster hook bait fished over the same feed. Gary fed half a pint of caster and half a tin of corn. Well done Gary.

I was right about wanting a draw on Lodge. Match Lake fished well especially in the 40's.

Back to the Lodge where drinks and mince pies welcomed us. Now which prize will I get for my 37th place?

A great thanks to Matt Long for getting the result out so quickly and Helen for getting the tea's and prizes sorted. Apparently Steve was seen a few times drinking Fosters hidden well out of the fray.

Full Result: (no peg numbers this blog)