Pawlett match. Avalon fishery. 18-10-15

32 of us gathered at Avalon fishery yesterday hoping for some decent fishing  and a nice match.
Having arrived in plenty of time and dipped my nets I had a chat, as usual,  with a few of the guys. Some of it was about the upcoming Teams of 3 that Vic holds at the venue each year. If you are interested then contact him through Facebook or the fishery website.

Back to the day. The usual rabble around the draw was happening and I pushed in around halfway down the 'line'. Hoping for a peg in the 30's or 40's.
I pulled 21. Not a great peg for either carp or silvers. My intention was to target the skimmers rather than the puddle pigs. With 20 and 23 being the obvious better pegs (for carp)  and 19 always capable of having a few fish of either carp or silvers, my confidence wasn't great.

Anyway the lake is pretty fair and the winners can come from anywhere.  So onwards and upwards.

I got to my home for the day and found I had Colin Haggett on my left and Chris Higgs on my right.

And with the vegetation having been trimmed on the islands it looked fishy, though I never saw a bubble or a sign of fish in my peg before the all-in.......actually that is a lie, there were plenty of smaller carp in behind the rushes to my right, they rarely venture out from here.

Avalon peg 21

With silvers being my target for the day, in theory, I set up 2 rigs for them, a light float (0.2g) for topkit with caster down to my right next to the reeds and a slightly heavier 0.4g float for 2 areas at 14m.
Now having done reasonable with silvers using groundbait with caster and dead maggots, I based these 2 lines on those baits, one fed with more loose feed and the other more groundbait,
My other baits on my tray was a small helping of meat and some 8mm pellets, purely for the chances the carp were playing ball and the silvers were not.
I did set up a pellet waggler to fish tight over and a margin rig for down to my left in the cut back area.

On the whistle I potted just 3 balls of well laced groundbait at 14m in the 1o'clock direction and less groundbait but more maggot/caster in the 10 o'clock direction.
Some meat went down to my left, but i never had a bit here all day, I fed some caster by hand to my right, but I never had a bite here all day, which came as a surprise as usually the rudd will be present.
It was just after the all-in that I had to go back to the car as the alarm was going off every 2 minutes, which seemed to annoy everyone except me, haha.

I began on the waggler and never had anything more than a slight bob on the float in the first 30 minutes. In this time Kev Crouch on peg 23 had around 4 carp and Higgsy on peg 20 was on 3. The pegs on the other bank were in the same boat as me and Colin, we were struggling.
After an hour I was on the long pole lines and 1st drop I had the number 6 laccy pulled from the pole and a spirited battle saw a 2lb carp netted.......that was the action over for 20 minutes, then I had a couple roach and a small perch. Things looked hard up this end of the lake, only Higgsy and Crouchy getting a few carp.

Another look on the waggler gave me a 2lb carp but this was a false dawn as another bite never came on that all day.
Back over the groundbait swim and I managed a 1.5lb skimmer before something more substantial took my double maggot hookbait. A 10 minute fight on the light elastic saw a near 6lb common netted.
By now we were midway through the match, I was on 3 carp (10lb-ish) and a couple pounds of silvers. Kev on peg 23 was on 7 or 8 carp and Chris Higgs on peg 20 was on 5 or 6 small carp. Nobody else had much more that a couple carp each up at this end of the lake, plus the silvers were not really upto much either. But from the grapevine it was fishing hard.

It was around this time that I set up a small groundbait feeder to fish across with maggots on the hook, hoping for a decent skimmer or 3.
1st chuck on this and a small tapping on the tip saw me connect with a fish, not a skimmer but a carp, probably 7lb, but a nice common none-the-less, though not the 3lb bream I hoped for.
A perch and small blade skimmer followed before that rod was chucked up the bank.

The last 2.5hrs of the match were mostly spent swapping between the 2 long pole lines and picking up odd roach and blade skimmer, but it was hard work.
I did manage 3 nice skimmers of perhaps 1lb each and bumped a couple better ones off the hook also.
This period of the match was quiet for most, but peg 19 had a couple decent carp from his margin and Mark Sweeting had a couple carp on his waggler before the wind picked up.
Higgsy ended up on around 10 carp, but were the smaller stamp. Kev Crouch had 11 or 12 and that was it, everyone else I could see had between 1 and 4 carp and a couple pound of silvers.
I did hear that Mike West, Steve Fouracre and Keith Clapp had decent nets of fish, as had Jamie Cook. Tom Mangnall had some decent skimmers by accident, but I suspected that Mike Bendell would have had some decent skimmers in his catch, but to be fair he does fish for silvers (I did tell him that I'd write that he fishes for carp and he'd have accidental silvers).

The  all out sounded and I finished on 4 carp for perhaps 16 or 17lb and maybe 5lb of silvers, it was bloddy hard work all day.
I packed up and loaded the car. Made my way to the scales and watched Mike West put 74lb or so on the scales, Jamie had around 65lb and Steve Fouracre had 50lb-ish. But Tom M. weighed 11lb of silvers and looked likely to that envelope. The rest weighed between 19 and 36lb, plus a couple DNW's.
Down to peg 19 and Kev Locke's couple of late lumps gave him 28lb, Higgsy had 25lb and just pipped me as my silvers (7lb 4oz) and carp (17lb 10oz) gave me 24lb 14oz.Colin had 14lb and then Crouchy plopped 38lb  on the scales.
The far bank weighed in, but I never watched until we got down to Keith Clapp, up until him there wasnt much caught with lots of DNW's. Keuth weighed 53lb+. Moving along the bank we came to Mike Bendell and his nets, With Tom Mangnall looking on someone called 11lb something as the weight, just to wind him up, Tom waddled off and Mike's net of silvers went 10lb 8oz. So he was 2nd in the silvers (we pay 1 only silvers).

Back to the hut and Jamie dished out the envelopes, Mike West won on the day, Tom won the silvers and I came nowhere, but had the 3rd best silvers net.

Results:
1st, peg 5. Mike West. 74lb 10oz
2nd. peg 9. Jamie Cook. 65lb 11oz
3rd. peg 39. Keith Clapp. 53lb 10oz

Silvers:
Tom Mangnall, peg 13. 11lb 5oz
Mike Bendell. peg 43. 10lb 8oz

Sections went to Steve Fouracre, Kev Crouch and Mike Bendell.

Weigh sheet 1

Weigh sheet 2

So all in all a very tricky day and it seems like the fish are starting to move to their winter haunts.
Mike caught mostly on meat down his margin in the last couple hours.
But I am looking forward to the Teams of 3 this winter,

Next week, I think, is Viaduct Lodge lake with the PSV crew........Silvers again?....maybe.

Stay Warm
Lee