Today was the second day of our mini escape to Viaduct Fishery in Somerset – we drove down yesterday and spent the day practising/pleasure fishing on Cary before having a nice meal (gammon and chips as it happens) and a few beers in the Unicorn Hotel in Somerton (which by the way is open until 2am – hic).
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| Not really a case of “when in Rome” as we were in Somerset! |
Any lingering traces of a hang-over were soon dispatched by a cracking full English in the hotel before heading down to the venue for today’s event, a 40 peg Angling for Heroes match split evenly between Campbell and Cary organised by the main men Michael Homer and Darren Millis. (This match would go on to raise over £800 for charity and the guys organise similar matches all over the country – click on the link below to check out their Facebook page.)
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| The usual pre-match excitement |
After buying some raffle tickets it was soon time to get into the queue for the draw – after a good old rummage in the ice bucket of dreams out pops number 112, a nice draw on the near bank of Campbell and according to Ian ‘Dicko’ Dixon a bit of a flyer (he’d know of course, never having drawn a duffer himself).
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| Time to walk the plank |
Campbell is essentially a rectangular lake that I’d guess is 50-60m wide. Anglers are pegged on both of the long banks and unusually there is also a peg on each short bank too. 110 is the corner peg nearest the car park (I think 135 is the one next to it on the short bank) so my peg 112 was just a couple of pegs out of that corner and pretty much directly opposite the aerator (that runs 24/7). The fishing position is at the end of a bit of a runway that extends some 10m from the bank – this means that you’ve had it if any items of tackle fall-off your side tray and has the effect of putting your margin lines directly behind you!
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| Looking right towards the flyers! |
I started my match on the short pole with meat – unfortunately this didn’t lead to any carp (just a couple of skimmers) so it was soon out to 14.5m with hard pellets on the deck. This was a bit better and I landed two carp in quick succession – and then the fizzing started!!! I kept going for a while and managed to sneak a couple more but it was no good really, that fizzing being a real pain.
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| Looking across to the far side |
So it was time for plan C, the straight lead at 25m where I got one straight away on a 10mm wafter – this was something of a false dawn as it then went a bit iffy, I did manage a few more but unusually for the straight lead most were hooked outside of the mouth. Over to the pellet waggler on the same line but this was no good, so it was back to 14.5m on the deck where I got a couple more, leaving me on a reasonable 50lb at the halfway point.
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| Don’t look back in anger |
I’m trying to think of an eloquent way of putting this but basically it then went rock hard for two hours and I probably only got two carp in this period – one on the bomb and one on the long pole shallow, not really the bagging session I was hoping for. Fortunately the last hour was good, initially with two good carp on the short pole with meat then 4 or 5 big ones from the margin on corn in the last half an hour or so – people normally talk about fishing lines in front at 11 o’clock or 1 o’clock, but this line was effectively fished at a quarter to six as I was sitting on my box backwards facing the bank behind me!!!
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| Nice to get an envelope for a change! |
In the end my bag of carp and the odd skimmer went 110-12-0, just about good enough for sixth overall and second in the 10 peg section – though as Mark Wynne next door had hammered-out 179-12-0 on the straight lead (a tactic that I couldn’t get working) to come second overall I picked-up the section envelope by default. (David White won the match with 182-12-0 from Cary 109, his son Dan White completed the frame with his third placed 178-10-0 from Cary 88.)
So thanks again to the fishery staff Steve and Matt for doing the weigh-in and to the guys from Angling for Heroes for organising the event – don’t forget to check-out that link above!
Until next time …
