Pawlett Club Match, Landsend Match and Speci, 19-01-14

Today's match saw 32 of us attempt to try and catch a few fish from this popular fishery.
We had both the specimen and match lakes, my preference would be somewhere on the match lake, pegs 11-19 would do. Specimen lake's 'most wanted'  pegs are 31-34 as they are the most likely for a day's fishing, especially 33 and 32, these two pegs frame at the very least in most matches. But having read various blogs and looked at the results from the fishery, peg 34 is the least favoured of the 4 given it hasn't framed much recently, but usually gives a few fish.

With the weather on Saturday being very wet, the forecast was brighter for today, so the sun and the reflections would be a pain at times should you be pegged on the near side swims. We also had a touch of frost in the air overnight too, which wont help anyone.
I arrived in plenty of time, I had to open the gate so I could park up, but around 10 minutes after my 7:40 arrival other guys started to turn up. It was the club's 1st match of the year and is often well attended (as are most matches really, which is great).

I loaded up my barrow and had a chat with a few guys before the 8am draw (at 8:10), we would fish 9:30 to 3:30. I picked my ticket about 6th in the line, pulling out a decent peg, peg 34. Vic Bush commented on my drawing ability....I mocked, a good peg is only a good peg if there is a decent angler on it, or words to that effect....well he had peg 8, so most pegs may seem decent to his....haha.
I don't know who else had what on the match lake.

Peg 34, Landsend Speci Lake (inc my brekkie)

Anyways I wandered my kit to the swim in 2 trips as I wasn't in a hurry. For company I had Chris Higgs on flyer/consistent peg 33. Chris 'giffy' Ware on peg 36. Peg 32 (golden peg) had the entertaining Sandra, while the other 'wanted' peg (p31) saw the club's match secretary and all round decent fella Mark Hembery sat there.

I sorted my box out and set about having a cup of tea.
Once refreshed I pulled the pole and 3 topkits out of the holdall. I mixed up a bit of wet-ish groundbait and softend the micros and pumped some expanders in 2, 4 and 6mm. After reading a few write-ups of the recent matches on there and a brief Facebook chat with Ken Rayner it seemed micros as main feed was the way to go. I did have other ideas, especially after last week at Avalon, I figured that groundbait would do well, cupped in loose.
I had some prawns, red and white maggots and a pint or so of caster.

I assembled the rigs all using NG XT Margin floats:
0.2g version on 0.18>0.14>size 14 b911, this would be for the near margin to my left and for 3 spots partway up the far shelf. Laccy was 10/12 middy solid.
0.3g version on 0.14>0.10>size 18 b911f1 for 2 swims at 7m and also at topkit length. Middy 8/10 solid was my elastic choice.
0.3g version on 0.18>0.14>size 16 b911 for the same swims as above. Elastic was 14/16 middy solid set very soft, but would only be used if I was catching plenty down the middle.

Once set up I went and told Chris on p33 that he should win from there....no pressure...haha.
I put my nets in and had another drink and ate a banana as I was peckish.
The whistle sounded so I cupped in some caster along my r/h margin, some micros at 7m in the 2pm direction. I also cupped half a pot of very damp, loose, groundbait at the 10 o'clock line again at 7m.
Over towards the island, all at 14m, I fed one area at the point of the island direction with some casters and red maggots, another spot by the bush I fed a decent amount of white maggots with the intention of fishing the prawn here. Lastly I fed some micros at 14m in the 1 o'clock direction.

I started over the shorter micro line with a 4mm soft pellet on the hook, but nothing happened here for ten minutes or so. I then put on a couple red maggots and placed the rig over the groundbait, 10 minutes later the float dipped and I missed the bite.
Meanwhile Giffy on p36 had attached himself to a carp, which after a spirited battle he netted, calling down that 18lbers shouldn't be match fish....(remember that fish.!!)
Elsewhere on the lake not much had been caught. Chris H. next door on p33 had missed a couple bites along the end bank.
After about an hour I had another bite over the groundbait, which saw the elastic stretch a bit before the rig came back with a scale attached, next drop the same happened and the 3rd put saw an identical scenario. So I left that line and tried over the micros, ten minutes passed and all I had happen was a missed bite.
Giffy had landed another carp, this time he said it was around 13lb....he too had lost one or 2 fish, both foulers.

At around 10:45 I tried the baited area by the bush, putting on half a prawn I lowered the rig in. A minute of lifting and dropping the float sunk away and a perch of about 1.5lb was placed in the keepnet. I then had a couple more from this line before re-feeding with white maggots.

I came back over the groundbait and promptly lost 2 more foul hooked fish, I think they were active over the groundbait but wouldn't settle properly.
I went back out long, this time over towards the end of the island, baited with double caster I had an instant bite, resulting in the elastic stretching well, after a 5 minute or so battle I netted a carp close to 8lb, hooked properly in the pectoral fin!!
Back out to the same spot and another foul hooked fish was attached, but after a few minutes the rig came back. I think the fish were just moving around, not feeding, in the warm-ish and brighter conditions. A look over the 14m pellet line only produced a couple knocks, so it was back with the prawn by the bush.....the next couple or so hours so me net a few more perch to 1.5lb and a couple F1's.

Chris on peg 33 had landed 3 or 4 carp, while Sandra also had a couple, things were not exactly hectic, but my silvers seemed to be building nicely.
At around 12:30 the sun was shining brightly towards the end bank of pegs 33 and 32, this was the catalyst for Chris on 33. All of a sudden his swim resembled and aquarium, he had 10-20 carp mooching around the surface layers occasionally sucking stuff off the top, it was rather 'summery' and the carp had responded to the extra warmth from the sun and come to the surface.
He quickly shallowed one of his rigs to fish around 18" deep with what looked like 3 red maggots on the hook. He set about swinging his rig on a long line, towards where the fish were.
After maybe 3 seconds he was in, landing a 7lb fish a few minutes later. The next 3 or 4 drops resulted in the same result for him. The fish never really moved much either, so it looked like the match, or lake at least, was wrapped up as he continued in the same manner until around 2:30 when I told him to get another net......he used the other net he had set up as he only had 1 tench in there.

At around 2:30 I had maybe 15lb of perch and F1's, all of which had come to prawns by the bush. I had also managed another carp on the same rig, so I had 3 ok sized carp for maybe 16lb. My micro's lines had not produced a bite and the groundbait saw me lose another carp, maybe it was the lighter elastic allowing the fish to run too much? Maybe I should have changed to a heavier grade?
At this point I chucked 1/2pt of caster over the topkit line in the hope the perch may come close.

I continued over towards the island, the bush gave me 2 more perch of 10oz each and the swim towards the point game me a mental F1 of maybe 3lb. I did try over the caster on the topkit, but the double caster bait was picked up by a lump, which decided just to keep swimming away from me and soon the rig was back in my hand...I had lost maybe 9 carp by now, but I am sure maybe 6 or 7 were foul hooked fish.

As the 3:30 all out approached it was fair to say it had fished hard, infact the car park had been rather busy since around 2pm.... Giffy had landed his 3rd carp, which was maybe 8lb, so he reckoned on maybe 39lb given he said he's had a 18lber a 13lber and the final 8lb fish....
Chris Higgs had gone an hour without mugging a fish, but the sun had gone in..!! He did land 2 more 4lbers late on though. He maybe had 80lb I guesstimated.
The last 15 minutes saw me land 2 more carp, so I think I had maybe 22lb or so of carp and possibly 18lb of silvers, so close to 40lb. So I had done ok on the lake.
Sandra had maybe 4 carp and Mark H. had a couple from what I could make out.
Further up the lake a few guys had packed up and Eric Fouracre had landed a chub..!!

On the all out I packed my kit up rather quickly and took the rod bags back to the car. A few guys commented on how hard the match lake had fished to everyone except Lewis Hembery on peg 15.
Infact the car park was at least half empty!!

I made my way back to my peg and waited for the scales. We weight in Chris on peg 33 first, I gave him a hand lift his nets as he has a bad back from his precious injury of a broken neck.
His bunch of carp and solitary 2lb tench gave him a very decent 78lb 13oz, probably enough to win the match.....
Next up was my nets. I tipped my perch and F1's in to the sling, they totalled a very good 20lb 3oz, which gave me a chance of silvers money. My 5 or 6 carp gave me another 26lb 13oz. So 47lb dead was my weight. I was pleased enough with that.
Giffy weighed next, his 3 carp gave him 30lb 6oz.....his 18lber weighed 13lb...haha. He needs a bigger landing net methinks..!!

I lumped the rest of my kit to the car and once loaded up, I stood around chatting to the Clapp twins and a few others. People commented that my silvers was miles ahead of  any other silvers weight, also I was 2nd on speci lake.
Alas, Lewis Hembery on peg 15 on the match lake had landed 50-odd pound for the best weight off that lake, so this gave me 3rd overall. Nice.

Weigh Sheets.



Results:
1st - Chris Higgs, 78lb 13oz from peg 33 - mostly caught shallow along the end bank
2nd - Lewis Hembery, 55lb 1oz from peg 15
3rd - Lee Willams, 47lb from peg 34, including 20lb 3oz of silvers. Mostly caught on prawns.

Silvers - Brian Gatis, peg 16, 8lb 9oz

Sections winners were Chris 'Giffy' Ware(p36), Mike Levy(p13) and Phil Manning(p24)

Looking at the sheets, it seems that there were plenty of dnw's, well most of these caught, but mostly less than 5lb of fish. So it was a difficult really in the bright conditions after a cold-ish night.

So all in all I enjoyed the match, I only wish I had landed a couple more of the foul hooked fish I lost, a couple were definite lumps, one was a big ghostie (mad things!!). I am pleased that I only lost one perch as they can have a tendancy to fall off.
I am also glad I gave prawns a go, infact going by most people I spoke to, I was the only person to catch on them, maybe it was the white maggots that helped?
One thing I did find odd was that when I had a prawn on I was getting knocks and bumps on the float, I presumed from small fish, but when a maggot or caster was put over the same spot I didn't get any indications.............do the perch grab the prawn and let go quite a bit? The bit was getting whittled away with these indications, so I was only 'hittimg' bites when the float properly disappeared.

I am also inclined to think that maybe I should have cupped in my groundbait in ball form rather than loose as this may have lessened the foul hooked fish over this line, but then I was getting action of sorts which was a lot more than anyone else was getting down the middle.

So next up for me could be the Saturday open on Acorn Paddock lake next weekend. After that is the 4th round of the Avalon Teams of 3 Series on the 2nd of Feb.

Until next time, Take Care
Lee

 

Avalon Winter Teams of 3, Round 3. Avalon Match Lake, 12-01-14

Yesterday saw the 3rd round of the Avalon Winter Teams of 3 event. It has been enjoyable so far, the weights haven't been spectacular, but it has been fair for 90% of the pegs, and as is the case during the winter especially, the fish tend to be fussy about when and where they feed.

I went to bed quite late on Saturday and the car was frosted over then, so when I woke on Sunday I knew the scraper was going to be needed. Alas it was solid, but 10 minutes with the scraper cleared all windows from ice, on the plus side the car was showing 2.5-3 degrees. It had obviously warmed up in the 5hrs since I went to bed.
I loaded a few bits into the car including the ice breaker and the rod ready holdall, which I didn't need on Saturday. The wife made me a flask of tea and some toast, she even prepared my bread for the punch, bless her.

I arrived at the venue at 8am, plenty early enough, but Vic and Pete were there anyhow and 15 minutes later I had company in my two team mates. James and Paul arrived early, so we managed to get our draw done in plenty of time. I got Section B, Paul had section C and James was in A, we were all peg 6 in each section thus being allocated permanent pegs 23(corner so all or nothing) for me, 38 (ok) for Paul and 9 (fair to decent) for James.

Soon after others started to arrive and comments and chitter chatter followed as is the relaxed approach to this series. The general idea was that it'd be tough after the frost, but everyone wanted to pick up decent section points and the usual skimmers and bonus carp was the aim.

I set up 3 rigs for the pole and at the last minute a lead rod was assembled.
Rigs were simple:
a 0.6 NG Caner for silvers, 0.14>0.10>18 B911f1 with 8-10 soft middy solid elastic.
a 0.5g NG Power pencil for carp, 0.20>0.16>14 B911 with 18-20 elastic (edge look snaggy).
a 0.6g NG Gimp, 0.14>0.12>18 B911 with 12-14 elastic. This was for the silvers line should I be getting too many carp.
Bait wise I had the usual micros, maggot, expanders and caster. I also had some 8 and 6mm pellets for the lead, along with some bread (remained unused) and 1/4 pint of corn. I mixed up 2 pints of groundbait as I had an inkling that it'd produce.

While setting up I managed to drown my micros and they turned to paste....wally. My 2nd lot wasn't much better but useable...wally. I also managed to mix my groundbait too dry (it floated on 1st cup)....whoops...wally!!

Ten minutes before the whistle young Matt Harris (Thatchers Youth) turned up as his team had forgot about the match, so he assembled a small feeder rod to start on to get fishing while sorting the pole etc.
On the whistle I cupped 2 balls of groundbait at 14m at the 11 o'clock position, some micros at 14m against a bale of straw close to the end bank (sort of 10am direction). I also cupped some micros and corn by another bale of straw at 7m to my left against the end bank. I also loose fed some maggot at the topkit line.
I lobbed a banded pellet close enough to the point of the island while I let the bait settle and have a cuppa. 20 minutes of boredom came and went so it was out with the pole.
1st drop over the groundbait I had a bite and a 3oz skimmer was netted, then a 3oz roach. For the next 20 minutes or so I put a bunch of small skimmers and roach in the net, amassing maybe 1 pound. I was enjoying it.
Looking at the pegs I could see it seemed I was doing ok, Dave Allen opposite on p24 had a few fish on the topkit line, Matt on p22 had a carp or 2 on his feeder. Further down there had been a few silvers caught, but I was unaware of much else.

An hour or so into the match the wind got up, and my peg, along with peg 17, seemed to be getting the worst of it. It became a struggle to hold the pole at 7m, so my 14m lines would have to be tried when or if the wind died down. I, at this point, opened a new line at 11m at the 2 o'clock line, but this never produced a bite all match despite several attempt, so no more on this.

I tried the topkit for 10 minutes, but this only gave me one roach. So it was the 7m margin line. I baited the hook with a grain of corn and lowered it in, it was tricky too as I was fishing 90 degrees across the wind...but within 30 seconds I had a bite and missed it, so I dropped the rig back in and the float buried again and my strike saw several feet of elastic come from the tip, now I wasn't going to pussy foot around with carp from this line as there are branches, twigs and reeds to contend with, so within 30 seconds I had a little 3lb carp in the net. Bargain.
15 minutes later I lost a foul hook fish, resulting in a massive scale being my parting gift.

The following 3 hours saw me switch to the long 14m groundbait line (the micros never gave a bit all match) when I could, this gave me the odd small skimmer. Meanwhile Matt was upto maybe 6 carp and was miles ahead. The pegs further down looked like they had landed a few fish and Dave opposite had a couple lumpy looking carp as well as some silvers on his topkit.

The 4th hour of the match saw me lose 3 carp, all foul hooked, but despite me adjusting the feed and alternating my rig depth, bites were not regular, especially with the wind and lack of presentation. This resulted in me adding some extra line to the rig in order to try and stop my pole tip buffeting the rig around, this was a good move as I immediately hooked another carp, which saw my direct approach in landing the fish pay off with the carp soon in the net, this one was maybe 2lb.
Into the last hour and from what I could tell, Matt looked like coming out as match winner, if not top 3, he had maybe 30lb of fish, he'd lost one or two as well I think.
20 minutes from the end I lost another carp before the following 2 drops saw a carp landed from each one, the all out sounded at 3pm so I finished with 4 carp and maybe 1.5lb of silvers.
I didn't expect to finish last in section as I think I had a few more than Titch William on peg 21 and Dave Allen on p24. With Keith Clapp in my section, on peg 17 (he won 1st round from there) I wasn't optimistic of doing great, also I couldn't see what the pegs along from Dave had done, but I was soon told they'd not done great.

I packed my kit away in quick time and loaded up the car. A chat with a few guys gave me reason to think I'd done ok for team points as the pegs from Dave to Jamie Parkhouse on peg 29 had no carp between them. So maybe a section 4th or 5th would be ok, but should have been better....so I thought.

The scales were soon at my peg and a quick look at the board saw that Matt had put a level 30lb on the scales but the pegs before him hadn't done as well as I thought. 10lb 11oz and 11lb 2oz were the better other weights. I knew I had close to 12lb of carp plus my early silvers.
Infact my silvers weight 1lb 9oz and my 4 carp went 12lb 11oz, totalling 14lb 4oz, putting 2nd in the match at this point with that weight!!

I took my car down to the car park and chatted with a few guys who told me that 'Lucky' John Dursley on end peg 48 had probably won the match as he had calm water and good presentation at 16m all day.....It turned out that I had 2nd in section too, and would be getting a section payout...bonus.
I did see that the Weston team of Jonny Page, Simon Ryall and Ron Stark had come last in 2 sections and 2nd last in the 3rd...how do they do it!!??
Paul and James informed me they did ok, but may have done better. But were defo mid section-ish. So team points looked ok, but not setting the series on fire.....but we had dropped points on weight in previous rounds, and our weights were not brilliant.

By now there was only a handful of us left, James and Paul had left, leaving me to see the results.
These were:

1st - John Dursley with 38lb 10oz from p48
2nd - Matt Harris, 30lb from p22
3rd - Lee Williams, 14lb 4oz, p23

Silvers 1st was R. Andres on peg 32 with 12lb 10oz
Silvers 2nd was Vic Bush, peg 42 and caught 10lb 12oz

Top Team was Somerset Carpenters with 28 points..!!

Section money went to M. Weston on p40, Mike West peg 3 and K. Clapp on peg 17.

Weigh Sheets 12-1-14

 

 

So how did it go? I think had the wind not got up when it did I would have been good for a lot more silvers, but I really do need practice in fishing 14m+ in the wind...maybe some upper body strength building is in order as well.

Maybe I should have switched to heavier floats on the pole and lengthened the line a bit, but all in hindsight.

Team wise we finished 4th on the day, dropping a point due to weight, to Fish and Field who are doing well overall.....We are back up to 3rd in the series, 3 points off the lead, but that is a big ask really. We do need to get into 2nd for a placing at the series end, but still we are 6 places higher than we expected to be, so we must be doing something ok.....

 

Next up for me is a match with Pawlett at Landsend next Sunday, which is the 1st time in ages I will have fished it, but I suppose I could have booked into Apex, but although it's fishing well, a bit more shelter was the deciding factor, I am bored of all this rain and wind.........especially the wind!!

 

Until next time,

Lee

 

p.s.  Avalon and Sedges are jointly running a couple of festivals this year, the 1st being in April, with a prize fund of 8 grand (£8000) based on a full capacity. See the pic below.

 

April Festival - Sedges and Avalon

 



Acorn - Paddock Lake, Clevedon Open match 11-01-14

Today saw me attend the open match, run by Clevedon FWAC, at Acorn fishery, Paddock lake.
These weekly matches are now £12 + £1 optional golden peg. Everyone is welcome, just be there before the 8:45 draw.

Alas, I arrived at around 8:40 due to the worlds slowest tractor leading a long procession of grumpy drivers.
I paid my dues, there were 11 anglers today, and Nick Harvey drew the golden peg, which the money carries over until won. He pulled out peg 26. He then drew himself peg 28 and Adie peg 11..!!
I picked my ping pong ball about 5th, pulled out peg 26. Nice.

Now I have never fished the lake, but have read a few blogs on the place, so I had no idea if it was good or not. A few of the lads told me it was ok, but maybe not so much at this time of the year if the wind isn't blowing. Peg 11 was the peg most seemed to want, that or a bridge peg.
My peg had the point of the island/far bank at 13m in the 11 o'clock direction, so that was 1 line sorted. I had a long margin to my left, so 1 line was fished at 13m along this, towards some grasses.
I also had a line, fed with a few maggots/pinkies at topkit length, plus a line on the 7th section around 1.5m from the far side, at the base of the far shelf.
Rigs were the same ones I used at Summerhayes last week, so 2 rigs were used.
Baits were simple, bread and corn for the margin/far side. Micro, maggot and expander for down the middle.

Peg 26, Acorn Paddock Lake



We were fishing 10 to 3:30 and really expected 5lb to do well in the silvers and maybe 30lb-40lb for overall top 2 places.
On the whistle I went straight over and began lifting and dropping my bread hookbait, I missed a bite after 20 seconds, then another knock a minute later. No fish though.
I then dropped the same rig down the margin and missed a bite. Back out down the margin with corn and the float went under, I missed again, probably small fish. But alas a couple minutes later I landed a chunky carp of around 1lb and then bumped another.

Not much happened over the next 90 minutes, landing just one roach on the longer silvers line and a 10oz skimmer on the topkit. But everyone else was struggling. The guys next to the bridge pegs had a handful of carp between them, plus I had seen Adie have 1 or 2 fish, but he was the other end of the lake, so I couldn't keep tabs.
Nick over on 28 hadn't had a fish, and the angler on p24 also was fishless I think.
Things wee hard.
Between 12 and 2 I never had a bite on the two carp lines, infact from around 12:20 I could not fish the left margin as the sun had risen above the trees and the reflection on the water was blinding, so I never even bothered again, even sunnies never really helped.
At 2-ish I made a conscious decision to fish for the silvers, I didn't have a clue what others had landed in the way of silvers, but by that point Nick was on 3 carp, the guys on the bridge pegs all had 3 or 4 each at least and Adie was getting plenty and from what I could see had won by a mile unless someone went like a windmill for the last 90 minutes.

My last 90 minutes produced 2 skimmers and a few little roach, I also bumped a 6oz skimmer at the net and hooked a fish on the topkit line which took elastic a good few foot before letting go.....I was pouring me a cuppa at the time....typical. I guess I had a couple pounds of silvers to go with my early carp. So probably no pick-up for me as Rich Heatley and Dom Sutherland had a couple better skimmers each from the pegs either side of the far bridge pegs (33 and 34).

The all out sounded and a few anglers tipped back without weighing. But I hung around to see my silvers total 2lb 13oz and my baby carp was 1lb 8oz, so 4lb 5oz for me. Not last of the weighing anglers. And more than some of those who didn't.

As it turned out Adie won from peg 11, almost catching more silvers than everyone else put together
Then his carp weighed more than everyone elses. So a good net for him.

Results:
1st - Adie Baker - 54lb 8oz, of which 14lb 4oz was silvers from peg 11.
2nd - Dom Sutherland - 19lb 8oz, of which was 3lb 8oz was silvers. Peg 34.

Silvers winner was Andy Guard from peg 7. He had 5lb 14oz.

Weigh Sheet (poor pic!!)

 



Anyways, I enjoyed it really, and I will be fishing a few more of these Saturday matches over the year. I learned a little, which I feel is important.

Next up for me is tomorrow's match at Avalon for the 3rd round in the Teams of 3 series.

Have Fun
Lee

Summerhayes Open, Sellicks Lake, 05/01/14

I decided on Wednesday that I was not going to fish today, given the weather forecasts. But I had a change of heart yesterday. I knew The Sedges had a match on Brick lake, but I didn't feel mad keen on that. So after work yesterday I took a trip over to Summerhayes Fishery, a venue I had not stepped foot on in it's current guise, it was maybe 15-17 years ago that I last visited.
I took a wander around the lakes and saw a few fish on most of the lakes. After a chat to Pete I said I may be there for the 8am draw.

Anyways on to today, I arrived at around 7:50 and as I unloaded the car I had a chat with Steve King, whom has been fishing the Avalon Teams of 3. It was then time for the draw, I did fancy a peg down the far end in the sheltered area, otherwise peg 2 or 23 would be nice....alas I drew peg 8, which means bum all to me, but it looked ok, but they all did.

Peg 8, Sellicks Lake, Summerhayes



I set up 3 rigs, 1 on a no. 12/14 middy elastic for dobbing bread across to the far bank and down to the empty peg 9 pallet. It was a 0.4g NG HD Margin float with 0.16>0.14>16 b911.
Secondly I had a NG Caner, 0.4g on 0.14>0.10>18 b611, elastic was middy solid 8/10.
Lastly I had a NG power pencil in 0.6g with the same line/hooks/laccy as on the Caner rig.

Bait wise I had wetted micros, 4 and 6mm expander, 1pt of mixed groundbait and a few maggots and a couple slices of bread.
On the whistle I cupped a golf ball sized lump of groundbait at 8m at the 2pm direction. A small helping of micros with a few expanders were potted at the same distance at the 11am position.
Lastly I cupped some micros and maggots down toward the pallet to my left.

Sadly that was as exciting as it got, after 2 hours I had missed one bite on the bread rig across and bumped a small foul hooked carp when shipping back. That was it. The angler to my left had not had a bite and the angler to my right had landed a single carp. I could see Steve Kedge catching a few carp on peg 2 and the guy on p4 was also getting the odd carp across to the far bank.
At around 12pm I hooked a carp, or rather foul hooked, which went miles to my left then came back, rolled and gave me a scale as a thank-you gift.
Ten minutes later I lost another fouled carp on the pallet rig before hooking one promptly in the mouth only for it to find refuged under the pallet, so a new hooklength was put on and I stepped up a grade of elastic.

By now it had been raining a while and the wind had got up, making fishing across pretty much impossible, even at 8m it was tricky.
Between 12:30 and 1pm I had 2 carp in a few minutes and a roach from next to the pallet of peg 9.
Kedgey was still catching on and off, the angler on p6 had a few skimmers and odd carp and p4 had a good few carp. Elsewhere, rumour had it p23 was bagging and had around 50lb by 2pm, which coincided in me deciding to pack up, the wind was a pain and I was bite-less, cold and didn't see the point in staying.
I wasn't the 1st to pack up though, at least 3 or 4 guys had already had enough.

Back in the hut Steve 'Jacko' Jackson was telling tales of old to us, it was also nice to see Dave Bull, a guy who I fished with as a junior angler. I didn't stay long and left at 3:15, so I never got the results, but I would imagine it would have been peg 23 that won, that was the general opinion to those no longer fishing.

I will be back there again though, I did sort of enjoy it, but the wind was an arse and knocked all silvers sport on my side of the lake at least, on the head, I think only a handful silvers were caught between the 5 of us.
Pete also seemed a sound guy and the way he chatted and from what I have been told, he puts 100% of effort and pretty much every penny he gets goes back into the fishery.

Next up for me is the 3rd round of the Avalon Teams of 3, where I hope to do considerably better.

Until next time, take care.

Lee