I would have liked to fish the river, but such is life.
I havent fished Avalon for years, it used to be one of my fave places to fish in the pre-pellet era, plenty of silvers and an abundance of carp make it a decent allround fishery.
Well, the day started of ok, bit of a frost and forecast due to be nice enough, dry at least. So I loaded the car and made the 20 minute trip from Bridgwater at 7:30am.
On arrival I was greeted with the lake being frozen over and in the distance I could see that other than where the swans were, it was pretty much due to be ice-breaking first up. The aereator was on, Leigh had put it on so the car park end was slowly getting some ice-less area.
Now I havent got an ice breaker, I havent used one since 1997 on the Bridgwater/Taunton canal, so I was debating whether I could/should fish.
A quick wander upto the speci pond where a friend of mine was fishing was refreshing, it was a touch cold. My mate informed me that the ponds had frozen up from around 3 or 4am and that it was fairly thick too, he had landed a couple from under the ice, reminding me of my decision that night fishing in winter is somewhat silly at times.
Back to the car-park and a few other guys turned up, coincideing with Leigh slowly making his way along the left bank (pegs 1-24) in the boat, breaking up ice. Some guys said that'd be an arse and would cause ice drifts and that making your own space would be better, but as I was breaker-less I was okay with it.
Eventually 18 turned up, a couple decided to turn back, leaving 16 of us to brave the cold.
Well it turned out that we had pegs 1-24 and for some reason Leigh said to use the first half dozen pegs on the right hand bank.
Banter was played out, some peeps took a wander to encourage Leigh to move faster in the boat and then the draw was made.
I put my had in and pulled peg 45 (only to find it is out of use, so to go onto 44....lol), on the right hand bank, to my right (p43) I had a chap called Roger and he had Mike West next to him on 42. To my left on 46 was John Wild.
The whole lake looked fair enough and the payout was top 3 overall and 2 silvers defaulted if needs be.
Fishing time was 10:45 to 4:45pm thus meaning plenty of set-up time. Fortunately I had decided on 2 rigs, one for topkit + 3 sections at 10 o'c and 2o'c positions. Another rig of the same set up, 0.6g NG XT Diamond HD, 0.14 to 0.12 size 16 B611, to be fished on 2 lines at 11m (10 o'c and 2 o'c) then moving further until the ice cleared as 11m was the max I could reach for a couple hours or so.
I also had a full depth waggler rod set up, but wasnt expecting to use it.
On the whistle I cupped a small amount of maggots and caster on the short line to my left, a decent amount of Sensas Lake Dark with few maggots at 11m. Some micros on the 2 o'c line at 11m and my right-side short line was just going to be loose fed with dead reds but that was only an area for when the other lines were rested.
Mike could reach 16m and this looked like his main line as he could reach several metres further than 'us other 3' on this bank. The opposite bank had more probs with margin ice but could fish longer on the pole, a few could even fish a couple metres off the islands.
So how did things pan out? Hard is the word that springs to mind, well for the 4 of us on the right hand bank anyways.
Mike had an early carp (well an hour or so in), I had 1 roach in the same time, the other 2 were blanking. I swapped and changed lines, coming up in the water on occasion incase the cold water had dropped to the bottom forcing fish up. There were loads of motherless minnows/miniscule rudd to be caught, but I really didnt fancy targeting them as skimmers would be needed for a framing weight if the carp never showed.
2 hours in an the ice had moved/melted a little more, but not enough for me to warrant opening a new line etc, so on I plodded, a couple more small roach and skimmers were caught by me, Mike had a couple decent skimmers and Roger on 43 had a couple small fish. The guy in 46 had a 2lb skimmer but missed his net when un-hooking it.
The far bank was faring better with plenty of silver and a few carp being caught, Pete Wild on peg 19 was doing well with carp and silvers, Matt Harris and Leon Hubbard were doing ok on pegs 10 and 23 respectively, more silvers than carp, but they were catching.
By 3pm the ice had allowed me to fish at 13, so i 'shuffled' my 11m 10 o'c line further out, I also dumped a big pot of wetted micros on the 11m 2o'c line, but so far this line hadnt produced more than 1 bite and was my resting line. The 2 short lines were dis-regarded so it was down to groundbait and single red maggot, this was the only combo I could get bites/fish on. Double maggot gave me un-hittable bites and ragged maggots, so single only it was.
Whatever i tried seemed to produce occasional bites and it was defo match over for my bank unless a million sympathetic carp turned up to eat. Even the silvers were not as forthwright as they were opposite us.
By 4pm I had amassed 3 small skimmers, 3 small roach 1 perch of 4 ounces and 2 decent roach of maybe 12oz's each. I also had a couple roach and skimmers fall off when not bothering to net them as they were 2oz each maximum.
There didnt ever seem to be a routine of the bites, it was a matter of toss-potting small balls of gb and occasionally topping up with a bigger cupfull and hoping for a couple quick bites. The occasional foray over the micros did produce two baby roach and 1 more missed bite.
By now i was proper freezing, my feet were like ice, but I was actually enjoying it and had decided to weigh in whatever for the 1st time in a few matches.
At 4:15pm the ice had more or less gone, and as the match was way out of the question, I gave my waggler rod an outing, casting 2 metres of the island and firing a couple casters each cast, I had a bite 2nd chuck, another 1 ounce roach, 4th cast gave me a 3oz skimmer then nothing,
Back on the pole for the last 15 mins, 1 bite, 1 roach. That was me done.
The final hour had produced plenty of fish for pegs 7 and 9 (and some lost ones too), but me, Mike and John remained struggling, Roger had left by 4pm after trying the lead, losing it in a snag and decided enough is enough. Think he only had about 5 roach.
The all out sounded at 4:45. My 2 decent roach and other silvers was going nowhere, Mike's solitary carp was backed up by a couple decent skimmers and a couple roach, John had 3 or 4 roach and 2 skimmers.
By the time we came to weigh in the results were settled, but the 3 of us weighed in.
p46 John, had 1lb 8oz, p45 (44) Me, 3lb dead,l p43 DNW, p42 Mike had a 7lb 7oz carp and 4lb 12oz silvers (which i called bang on before the scales) for 12lb 3oz.
In the car park, everyone on the other bank mentioned how well it had fished and that there were only 2 weights under 21lb. Ourside = different.
So all in all, an enoyable day for me, a struggled, but an enjoyable one. Maybe they could have just pegged the left hand bank and there was enough pegs, but they wanted peeps to have space, yet the 4 of us on the right side were all in a line.
Results/Payouts:
1st overall, Pete Wild, peg 19 with 42lb 11oz (20-2 silvers)
2nd overall, Mark Harris, peg 9 with 40lb 1oz (6-10 silvers)
3rd overall, Ian Graham, peg 7 with 34lb 12oz (2-0 silvers).
1st Silvers, Matt Harris, peg 10 with 14lb 12oz .
2nd Silvers, Leon Hubbard, peg 23 with 12lb 15oz.
My next match looks to be in a fortnight when I hope to be on Shiplate main lake for Clevedon's match, another 1st time for me.
I am the un-named on p44..!!
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