Day two of our cheeky weekend away at Viaduct Fishery – I’d love to say that I spent last night sorting my kit/bait and having a nice meal in the Glastonbury Travelodge but the truth of the matter is that we went to a nightclub that was full of people much less than half my age and they were playing a style of music I couldn’t even begin to comprehend!!! (I was later informed that the music was something called ‘jungle’, though I’m still none the wiser.)
Day 2 - Campbell Lake
After yesterday’s match on Lodge Lake today’s event was to be held on the infamous Campbell Lake, home to some monster carp and home to some monster match weights in excess of 200 pounds. Having not seen this particular lake before we had a quick look around before the draw and I have to say it seemed much more suited to my style of fishing than Lodge Lake – Campbell is a much bigger lake (35 pegs) and hence rod and line tactics seemed more applicable. The lake itself is a simple rectangle with platforms along all four sides, the only visible feature being an aerator somewhere near the middle (so no islands) – it very much reminded me of the first two lakes at Bolingey, just twice the size.
My draw saw me on peg 123 – this is a spot in the far corner of the lake. As a result I had lots of room and access into the corner to my left but unusually for rectangular venues one of the pegs along the short bank was occupied. This restricted my open water fishing to a range of 20-22m – any further than this and I’d have been casting my bomb or waggler onto the end of the guy on peg 121’s pole!
Looking towards 121
Prior to the all-in I settled on four options and set-up the following rigs:
Straight lead – 8lb Daiwa Sensor main line, a free-running 10g Guru square bomb and 30cm of 0.17 N-Gauge to a size 14 QM1 with an 8mm hair-rig (the correct length for a drilled 8mm pellet)
Top 2 plus 2 – black Hydro, 0.17 main line, 4x12 Roob (shot with number 10 stotz shirt button style to give a slow fall), 15cm hooklength of 0.13 to a size 16 LWG (eyed)
Short margin at top 2 plus 2 – red Hydro, 0.19 straight through to a size 12 MWG, 0.3 SconeZone V6
Long margin at 11.5m – same components as above (this line was fished at 11.5m as this is the longest distance I could fish at and still get tight to the bank, any further and the bank disappeared out of sight around a bit of a point)
I was opposite Bagger today
I started my match by pinging a few 8mm pellets onto my bomb lines (one straight in front, one diagonally to the left towards the narrow bank), a nice pull and a decent carp from the line straight in front first cast being my reward. Unfortunately this was only followed by some fizzing and the odd liner so I soon moved on to the bomb line towards bank – this was soon sacked-off as it was full of twigs and every time I reeled-in I found some form of plant matter or other masking my hook point.
I eventually managed a tench and another carp from the original straight lead line but following even more fizzing and the sight of the odd carp swirling through my loose feed I decided to set-up a pellet waggler rod. Second cast on this new approach saw a proper bite (that pulled the rod tip as I was reaching for my catapult) and carp number three was soon in the net – though this was something of a false dawn as over the next hour or so I could only manage two more bites on it, the first being a big foul-hooked fish that took absolutely ages to land!
The margin line to the left
As sport on the waggler was hardly hectic I decided to have a quick look on the 5m line with meat – this saw plenty of bites but generally from very (very) small fish and even though I also managed a tench and a couple of skimmers it was clear that I was going nowhere with this line so it was time to move on again. In mild desperation I upgraded my bomb to a 19g version and tied-up a PVA bag of pellets to attach to the hook and as is often the case such a change of tactic led to a carp first cast. Obviously I thought I'd cracked it, then promptly never had another bite on it – that’s fishing I guess!!!
As a result I went long down the edge to the left earlier than expected (1330) and kicked things off with a big pot of dead read maggots and sweetcorn – this led to a carp straight away on a big bunch of dead maggots, then nothing for the next twenty minutes, so as expected it was still a little bit too early for all out margin fishing. I returned to the straight lead in front line, feeding really heavily with 8mm pellets to try and induce a reaction, though in the end I only really managed to induce loads and loads of fizzing!!! (I eventually got a pull which fell-off at the net - boo.)
Those boots need a polish!
With two hours or so to go I went back down the edge and eventually got into a run of fish, big potting a combination of live and dead read maggots definitely being the best feeding approach. As is often the case I lost a few (almost certainly all foul-hooked), but I also landed a fair few on big bunches of dead maggots. In the end my fish weighed a total of 84-8-0, a decent enough weight but still well short of the superstars that made the frame:
Pete Franklin - 171lb 3oz - peg 127
Martin Johnson - 162lb 15oz - peg 125
Ian Dunlop - 146lb 15oz - peg 114
Neil Morgan - 136lb 13oz - peg 129
Rob Wiltshire - 130lb 8oz - peg 126
Phil Cardwell - 115lb 15oz - peg 128
So that’s the end of a very enjoyable weekend – Viaduct certainly seems to be an excellent venue and the people that run the place are particularly friendly and helpful. It’s just a shame that it’s a two and a half hour trip each way, but I for one would be keen to pay a visit again in the near future.
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