07/12/08 - Viaduct - Spring Lake

Weight – 5lb 1oz
Catch – 79 Roach, 10 Rudd, 9 Bream, 1 Motherless Minnow
Weather – -5c overnight. Lakes iced over. Sunny & cold.
Water temp – 4.5c > 4.5c
Match – Veals Winter League – rd 7 – 31st overall, 10th in section

After last weekend’s disappointment, I was hoping for a good draw. Spring, Middle, Cary & Campbell were in, but everyone was hoping for a decent silverfish peg because of the ice.

I drew peg 4 on Spring, which Paul Garrett suggested I sit on the tip for carp, assuming I could reach the island! Unfortunately I couldn’t, otherwise I really fancied my chances. Instead I had to target the silvers, but the catch was I had Des Shipp on one side and Nicky Collins on the other. An England international and a silverfish venue expert, I felt a battering coming up and just hoped the ice would melt so I could get to the island.

I set up 2 lines, 6m feeding pinkie and 13m feeding black lake/mussel & squid with caster.
I was never going to match Des or Nicky by copying them, so I had to work hard to find a way of catching better quality fish. I did catch plenty of fish, but had too many small roach. If I had been able to practice I would have changed my approach slightly, by feeding small balls of groundbait more frequently, I also wouldn’t have fed liquidised hemp which seemed to attract too many tiny roach, instead of the skimmers.

In the end Des weighed 13lb and Nicky 8lb, but the main weights came from the corner pegs 6 & 7 (Andy Lloyd won the match with 94lb) plus there was 4 big silverfish weights (28lb-33lb) from pegs 17-20 in the deeper water.

Overall the day difficult for most, with a total of 10 blanks, mainly from the ice free Middle Lake. Cary was only won with 15lb and Campbell with 23lb.

1st Mike Nicholls – Charlies Angels - 87pts
2nd Chris Davis – Westerleigh – 85
3rd Ryan Shipp – Westerleigh – 77 (222-5)
4th Vince Brown – Sedges Mosella – 77 (182-3)
5th Adam Palmer – Sedges Mosella – 76
6th Jon Gray – Somerset Angling – 75.5
7th Eric Fouracre – Sedges Mosella – 75
8th Tim Pallant – Maver Veals Blue – 71.5 (158-2)
9th Mark Broomsgrove – Sensas Thyers – 71.5 (119-7)
10th Tony Rixon – Avon Angling – 71
21st Ken Rayner – Maver Veals Red - 56