Viaduct, Campbell, 01 May (19 pegs)

I have no idea what the results were from the Psv / Frys inter club match at Shiplate last week as I was pissed somewhere in Berlin but the Radfords cleaned up with Ryan winning overall from 15 on Hawthorns and Mark winning Westpool also from 15.

And apparently Frys got their backsides properly kicked so I'm told!

Nineteen of us fishing today, one no-show but it was his birthday and he was probably up to no good on Saturday night so not wholly unexpected.

I won't mention names as that would be unfair ....

Anyway, the Saturday match had been won with 200lbs up in 123 and every peg from 128 down had weighed over 100lbs.

The wind was still blowing up that way so that was the desired area (but it was a Psv match)!

I hung back towards the end of the draw queue, Lee Williams was hanging back also (waiting for 130 to go) and orgsniser Will had the last one which was 132.

Lee got 125 and I got 128 which was the same peg I had last time and I did ok off it then so I was happy.

I think Lee was happy too even if he was hoping for a days silvers fishing.

Talking of silvers, the "Silvers Slayer" (Lee Waller) was not so happy having drawn 123 which is traditionally a "run to" silvers peg but maybe not today.

Payouts today were top 3 overall, 2 silvers and 3 sections. The silvers was mostly likely to be a battle between John Bradford next door on 127, 1-rig Belcham on 112, Mike Wilson on 114 and the 2 Lee's on 123 & 125

Plenty of time to set up today as we had a 10-30 start, much to the disgust of "1-rig" and it was quite ironic really as I had actually done some prep on Saturday night putting new line on reels, setting rods up properly and changing catty elastics so even I was ready in plenty of time.

Adam Caswell  even had time to go for a bath (bless him) ....

I set up the obligatory tip rod, a full depth waggler and 2 pole rigs, one for meat straight out at 14m and a similar rig for off the end of the spit which didn't produce for me last time but it should have and would hopefully be my banker today.

Bait was nothing fancy, 8mn pellet and/or meat for the lead and waggler, meat with wetted 4mm's for the pole lines.

Starting off I dumped hefty pots of pellet / meat on the pole lines and started on the waggler. The presentation wasn't great with the wind blowing right to left and towards me but it mattered little as I wasn't getting any indications anyway.
Unlike Steve Sewell over on 116 who was catching on the tip from the off, as were Ross Sewell and Matt Williams either side of the aerator on 111 & 130 respectively.

After about an hour of thrashing the waggler around and feeding the ducks I finally had a proper bite and landed a carp of about 5lbs. And this was followed by another four that all seemed to be hooked properly but all came off.

I tried altering the depth and stepping up the feed but it wasn't really happening.

Feeding more pellet created a bit more interest but not much in the way of proper bites.

I had a few chucks with a pellet waggler but that was a waste of time as well.

The only consolation was that everyone else down our end were in the same boat  and most of the action was taking place on the opposite side. 

Steve and Ross Sewell were still reeling them in on a regular basis as was Alan Healey on 119 and even the now dried out Adam was catching on 118.

2 hours in and with only 3 or 4 carp to show for it I gave up and chucked the lead out ..... and it went round more or less straight away (bugger)!

But it turned into a similar scenario with lost fish and a few foul-hookers detaching themselves.

With 2 hours to go I reckoned I had about 8 or 9 fish for 50lbs which was way behind Alan and the Sewells (£2 down the drain then) so the rods were abandoned in favour of the pole off the end of the spit.

First put in resulted in a near ten pound fish which was a bit of a trauma to get in with trying to thread the pole through a suitable hole in the otter fence while trying to control mr angry on the other end.

The rest of the match went much better as a few fish had moved in and they were quite a bit bigger than the fish I'd been catching earlier.

I did have one hiccup losing a proper lump when the B911 snapped in half

(that was a first) 

Unfortunately I think I might have overdone it on the feed as the last half hour was a bit frustrating missing loads of bites and having to ship back constantly to put another piece of meat on.

Probably should have fished hard pellet over there but never mind.

I ended up with 92lbs which was the 2nd best weight on our bank after Matt Williams who weighed in 99-2 although Degsy Williams ran me close with 91-9 from 124.

As expected Steve Sewell was well ahead of everyone else with 139-1 all reeled in on the lead with meat.

Alan was second with 106-14  and Ross was third with 104-6 (mostly caught by bouncing a lead off the aerator)

Silvers went to John Bradford with 33-9 of good skimmers and a stray tench caught on worm over caster at 9m

1-rig Belcham (below) was 2nd with 19-3

(well it is Star Wars day)!

Full Result:

1. Steve Sewell (116) .... 139-1

2. Alan Healey (119) ..... 106-14

3. Ross Sewell (111) ..... 104-6

4. Matt Williams (130) .... 99-2

5. Ron Hardiman (114) ... 94-14

6. Steve Burgess (128) .. 92-0

7. Degsy Williams (124) .. 91-9

8. Adam Caswell (118) ... 87-2

9. Mark Radford (136) .... 68-11

10. Will Dearlove (132) ... 68-8

11. Keith Ray (129) ....... 62-15

12. Mike Wilson (113) .... 58-1

13. Brian Shanks (126) ... 51-11

14. Lee Williams (125) .... 48-10

15. John Bradford (127) ... 33-9

16. Simon Belcham (112) .. 19-3

and 2 dnw's including the "Silvers Slayer" (again)

Silvers:

1. John Bradford .... 33-9

2. Simon Belcham .... 19-3

3. Brian Shanks ....... 16-9

4. Lee Williams ....... 10-8

5. Ross Sewell ..... 8-0

    Ron Hardiman ... 8-0

    Mike Wilson ...... 8-0

(the scales were stuck)