Sunday 20th September 2015 – Viaduct Cary Lake

As the Rugby World Cup begins, 17 of our best Hookers lined up at the Viaduct Arena and listened to the team talk from Captain Bob. “Keep your hook lengths long and no rucking in the margins”. Well, there was some rucking moans at the draw when less than desirable pegs were drawn. I drew the ‘two fat ladies’ (88) and was not excited due to its poor performance over recent months. To my left I had Captain Bob Pascoe on 90, the Welsh wizard, Brian Chivers on 86 and yet again, in front of me was that man Fletcher!!!

Peg 88……

A crowd around Shaun on peg 81.

What words of wisdom were they giving you Shaun?

At my peg, Paul Berry gave me a tip about the left margin but apart from small silvers, nothing else showed up. My main approach was to target the carp on the lead at 20 metres in front with a second line on the pole at 2:00 o’clock at 11m. Bait was a mixture of normal pellet, robin red pellet and amino paste.

Captain Bob decided that everybody was ready 5 mins early and blew the all in horn. I fed the margin pole line and chucked out the lead and waited. Apart from liners, I was still waiting for a take on the lead, an hour later. I noticed there was plenty of bubbles over my 11m line and so investigated with a banded 6mm pellet but all I got was attention from small skimmers. I changed to paste and had a good take but the Cary ‘munter’ just took off until my hook separated! Back to my lead rod and I had my first take and fish in the net, a 12lb mirror. Then nothing but small skimmers on the pole lines. With an hour to go I had a flurry of takes, 4 takes in 4 put ins. 2 were landed, one shed the hook at the net and one which did an impression of a submarine which I couldn’t get to the surface no matter how hard I pulled. The hook length gave way and so that was my day. 3 fish for 30lb exact.

While sat there watching a still tip for most of the match gave me a chance to take in what the rest of the HLS mob were doing. There was plenty of splashing from Brian on my right but he kept say that he only had one!! Bob, George and Dave Harvey were a blur of activity as they netted their usual quantities of 'whitebait'. However word got around that Danny and his magic maggots was doing better on peg 80. The most carp action was occurring in adjacent pegs, 97 and 98 where Matt and Simon had steady action throughout the day. Matt ran out the winner with 9 fish for a winning 100lb 14oz. It was his first ton in a match and first win with HLS, well done!!

The scores on the doors were….

Overall

1^st Matt Culpin (97) – 100lb 14oz

2^nd Eric Searle (78) – 90lb 8oz

3^rd Simon Gardner (98) – 73lb 1oz

Silvers

1^st Andy Danahay (80) – 19lb 11oz

2^nd John Barker (99) – 17lb

3^rd Bob Pascoe (90) – 16lb 2oz

Score sheet….