Viaduct Holiday Day 5

 Wednesday and no open matches today, but the fishery management Steve and Mat Long, allowed us to use Campbell lake as long as we paid a peg fee. With nine of us we again decided for a friendly team match, teams of 3 of course today. The teams were determined by the pegs we drew, so as the anglers went round the lake each peg was A B C then A B C, hope that makes sense.  My team mates today were Mark Tanner on flyer 116, Glenn on 130 (next to where I was yesterday) and I was on 124. 124 had been awful all week but I had plenty of room with 123 and 125 left out, but still wasn’t too upbeat if I’m honest, and also it meant another day of frying in the sun with no shade. I was envious of those on the opposite bank.

For me it was a case of setting up the same rigs as the day before, but till now I’d not mugged a carp or caught more than one in the Campbell margin. Gordon was on my right on 126, he couldn’t get away from this area all week and really had poor draws, and Gary Bowden was on 121 and could see a lot of carp in front of him.

I decided to fish the paste at 13m today, and was well happy when my chosen spot began to fizz immediately and I had a skimmer first drop. A couple more skimmers and then my first carp, and this was my best start to a match this week. After the first hour I reckon I had 25lb of skimmers on paste and the one carp, but that was behind Gary who was getting plenty of carp. Still I ploughed on as the skimmers were ravenous and I was really enjoying catching them.

Another hour gone and a couple of carp interrupted the skimmers. Normally I get a phone call from Glenn if he’s struggling but not today, so I called him and he told me he was catching carp steadily, well done team mate, he was shocked when I said I had 60lb and 40lb of that was skimmers. I kept thinking the skimmers would disappear but they didn’t until after 4 hours when the carp decided to get in on the act. I did feed the margins but saw no signs so carried on with the paste.

I was on three nets for skimmers and two for carp when the match ended. A very busy day with just a couple of quiet spells, goodness knows how many times I shipped  in and out with my hands burning on the red hot pole 😂.

When the scales got to me Glenn was top with 227lb, Gordon struggled to get 81lb and then on my turn my carp went 97lb 12oz and my skimmers 107lb 10oz for a total of 205lb 6oz. Gary would surpass that with 215lb . We were the top 3.

Undoubtedly my best ever bag of skimmers and all on the paste. That made my heart skip a few beats too 😂

On the team front we had a mare… Glenn lost 6lb by going over in one net, and we’re not sure if Mark Tanner actually faced the right way catching 12lb of 116 🙈🙈. We lost the team match by 5lb 🙈🙈 that’s the way it goes.

As you can see the skimmers had a good munch today, and Lee Masey had 81lb of them on worm and caster.

Wednesday night meant curry night, not sure what was hotter the curry or the restaurant itself 🥵. Still we all enjoyed the food that’s for sure, and after 1 pint in the Unicorn we returned to the Lodge for more fun and banter.