The annual holiday to Viaduct (or as someone has called it "jolly boys outing") this year was supposed to be as always in June, we all know why this didn't happen, bloody Covid, and instead we were given week starting 19th September. With matches scheduled every day it is a week that does fly by, but without the pressure of a festival it is just good friends fishing hard and enjoying each others great company. It was all safe with 5 lads in one lodge and 4 of us in the other being Mike Nicholls, Martyn "Woody" Woodington and Glenn Bailey.
I actually did not fish the match on the Saturday on Carey, reason being the 19th was my birthday and I had a family meal planned out in Bath which was lovely. I arrived at the Lodges at Viaduct about 7:30pm that evening, unpacked and then found the rest of the crew in the Unicorn Hotel just about to get their food. See Mike's blog for the result of that match.
My Day 1 was therefore on the Sunday open match being held on Lodge Lake, a lake where in the past I seem to have some either very good, or very bad matches. Steve Long did the draw for each person, and I was very happy when he pulled out the Monk peg 64 for me, though I would like to have been on 66 purely as I have never drawn it, but Woody was on that one so I had him in full view, my other neighbour on peg 62 was Lodge mate Glenn. Steve told me there had been a lot of carp up my end of the lake so I went to the peg with positive vibes. It was a lovely sunny warm day so I got my legs out.
I set up a 4x12 rig to fish banded pellet on the deck straight in front at 5m and again at 11.5m, a shallow rig, a 4x10 for the margin at 13m up past the monk. I did also set up a rig for the pallet on 63 and a pellet wag, but neither were any use to me today. I began on the 5m line looking for one of the silly fish that sometimes oblige, but after 20 mins not a bite and Woody opposite was already hooking fish on the paste, but had yet to land one. I went out to 11.5m where I had been feeding 6mm with a catapult, nothing, it was all very quiet, but I had a couple of swirls so went shallow for nothing at all. An hour in and I had nothing in my net, I shouted over to Woody that my blog would be short but at least I could write about him losing 6-0 to the carp at this stage lol. I think in this photo he was debating what to do next.
With me catching nothing it was a choice of going into the margin really early, or making the 11.5m line work, and as I was sure there were fish in the peg I went with the latter and put on a toss pot and tried to feed like this. Well it was soon to prove to be a good move as I was soon landing my first carp from the 11.5m line. In fact I think I had 6 in in 6 drops, many of these were the small stockies which seem to go from 1 to 3lb. I don't mind catching carp of this size and have done a lot of that in years gone by, and feeding with the toss pot allowed me to regulate the feed and keep everything tight for them. I did get the odd better 6lb carp from here. Things inevitably slowed up, but I had a decent couple of hours here and from what I could see and what Glenn told me I was easily the best on the lake.
With 2 hours left I went up past the Monk, into a spot that I had been feeding with 6mm pellets, I put an 8mm in the band and started with the rig 1/2m away from the edge, straight away I had a small stocky and bites were instant for the the first half a dozen drops, before it became a more patient approach. Very similar to the 11.5m line the better carp were just very few and far between, and rather than getting better the margin stayed slow, even resting it didn't seem to improve it.
However, I would get a bite which was better than many who were still struggling, like Glenn with just 2 carp. I then noticed Mike Nicholls and Paul Elmes in the opposite corner catching carp, with Mike appearing to be catching lumps judging by the struggle he had to lift them out. As Mike was flying I was slowing but I had no clue of his weight. When the match ended I was more than happy, after a blank first hour I had caught a fair few of the stocky carp and with quite a few better ones thought I had 110lb to 120lb, probably my busiest days fishing on this lake.
The scales weighed Mike first, and he had 127lb, 10lb of silvers and he had just 10 carp all caught in the last 100 minutes he said, completely different from my day. I didn't think I had that much but it was bloody close, with me weighing 126lb 4oz, just 13oz off the win, I never had a silver which was a bit unusual, so second place and a great start for me. Well done Mike on the win (see his blog for how) and Paul Elmes for third with 76lb, and Martin Rayet for winning the silvers with 34lb of skimmers on meat.
Woody ended up with 68lb and Glenn really struggled with just 30lb, but he was not sore and took a photo of me, thanks!
We were unable to eat out that night at the Unicorn, but they had prepared roast dinners for all of us that we had to just reheat ever so slightly, it was a nice evening and lovely to sit outside the lodge in a t shirt in September. The meal was bloody enormous and I was stuffed!!!
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