The weather was rather murky, foggy, but warm, though the easterly wind was a touch chilly and was coming at me, rather infrequently, from the 2 o'clock direction.
The team I am involved with this time around was named The Young Ones. My partners were Steve and Eric Fouracre. Team Sedges have won the last two years' competitions and along with Team Mosella Uk, are the favourites to win round by round and overall. Somerset Carpenters and The Fu Fighters were the other teams.
I arrived in plenty of time and had a chatter with Vic Bush before wandering around the lake with him. It looked ok, but the patches of the grey murkiness that inherits the venue were rather sporadic in their location. But the pegs at the near end (3 to 11 and those opposite) would be my choices, though 22 and 24 would be good team draws.
Once everyone arrived and the monies had all been handed in, the draw was made.
Vic pre-determines the pegs that dictate the team draw. So the captain draws a section for him then a number that dictates all 3 pegs for the day.
Eric drew and found himself on peg 3, not best pleased with his draw.
I was on peg 16, the small island, and that is usually a fair draw and I wasn't too unhappy.
Steve was over on peg 28 (I think) and had the gap in the island in front of him, albeit with a dodgy bit of overhead foliage that would be a pain to him all match.
I arrived at my peg to find I had Phil Clapp on peg 19, he'd be casting to peg 20's gap in the island.
I had Mark Sweeting to my left on peg 13, so plenty of space all round.
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| Peg 16, Avalon Fishery |
A pellet waggler was assembled as was a small feeder, both using 8mm banded pellet as hookbait.
4 pole rigs were knocked up, 2 for silvers and a couple for carp.
The 2 silvers rigs were a) topkit length to hand for bits and bobs using just caster over caster and b) a skimmer rig for 14.5m in line with the end of the island at the 11 o'clock direction.
The couple of rigs for the carp were a) a meat/pellet rig for 13m in the direction of the other end of the island. b) a margin rig for 13m down to my left towards the empty peg 17, again using meat over pellet.
I mixed up some groundbait and pumped some pellets (unused all day). I had 8mm and 6mm pellets for feed, a small helping of meat along with some micros to use more in the way of attracting a few smaller fish plus some maggots and casters.
At the all in I potted 4 balls of groundbait in for the skimmers at 14.5m and pulted some pellets across to the island. I also began feeding the top-kit with a few casters,
Starting on the feeder and it was 10 minutes before my first carp, a nice 4lb mirror was netted, my hopes rose somewhat.
10 minutes later and I was playing a nice fish, only to land a pike of 7 or 8lb......don't count....tipped back.
10 minutes later and a 6lb carp was landed on the feeder then another pike came the following cast!!
So a nice 30-45 minutes, despite 2 pike for around 15lb that wouldn't count.
Then I came on the top-kit and picked off a few rudd and roach, before losing a pike and finding bundles of snags, I managed to recover 3 pole rigs, 3 feeders, 1 lead and countless amounts of line throughout the day (all coupled with branches and twigs).
The next 2.5hrs was dull......I fed the pallet down to my left and let that settle, I had a skimmer from the long line, that was a false dawn. The pellet waggler didn't give me a bite all day, and when I did see fish, the wind picked up and screwed any sort of presentation. So I swapped between the feeder and picking up the odd silverfish on the top-kit line.
I watched Pete Wild bagging up, I could see Tom Magnall's landing net being used pretty regularly down on around peg 11, plus I knew Rich Coles on end peg (of our side of the lake, not the corner peg) was getting a few carp.
Back to my match, it was now around 1:30pm and I had 2 carp and possibly 4lb of silvers in my nets, probably last in section as I could hear that Mike West had obviously started catching as he had began to 'sing'.....one of my teammates was doing okay so the rumor mill was saying, the other was doing less well.
Suddenly my tip wrapped round and I was attached to a lively carp, it was obviously a stockie and it's spirited battle saw it in my keepnet, another 3lb added to my tally. Again no more were coming, so I topped up my feed down by empty peg 17.
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| Looking down to empty peg 17 from peg 16, Avalon Fishery. |
I took a look down to my left and had a bite 1st drop in and found a 2lb skimmer then it's 6oz cousin.
That took my silvers to maybe 8 or 9lb.
It was now 3pm and I hooked a carp that went through the empty pallet, but it waddled back out (thankfully), before it went mad, it felt foul hooked, and this was confirmed when, after a 5 minute fight the hook pulled, leaving a bit of a scale.
I had another bite at 3:30pm from down by p17 and it felt a decent fish, a decent scrap pursued before I managed to get the landing net under a short, lumpy mirror that looked 12lb but probably weighed around 14lb.
No more fish were forthcoming in the last 15 minutes and at the all out I began to pack away, thinking to myself that I was possibly 4th in section, just ahead of Phil Clapp.
In reckoned on 8 to 9lb of silvers and maybe 25lb of carp.
I followed the weigh in and saw teammate Eric weigh in with 97lb 4oz from peg 3, then we saw plenty of decent weights with Keith Clapp (Sedges)and Tom Mangnall (Mosella Uk) getting 93lb and 83lb respectively. John Fuidge (The Fu Fighters) used his top notch silvers fishing skills to have over 23lb of his prey from his favoured peg 9, taking the silvers pool on the day, he also drew the sillver peg after the match to take that pot as well.
Mark Sweeting weighed in a couple carp and 12lb of silvers before it was my turn.
My silvers weighed in at 9lb and the 4 carp weighed 27lb, so 36lb was ok, but probably not enough.
Phil Clapp weighed in his 4 carp before we got to Rich Coles, he took the section money with 74lb+ of mostly carp caught down both margins.
Around to Vic Bush on peg 24, he caught a few in the 2nd half of the match but fell 1lb 2oz less than me.
Mike West had 46lb 2oz, but said he lost loads to the legs of his peg....he should play them further out then...haha.
The 3rd member of our team weighed in, Steve had a couple carp and around 12lb of silvers.
Further along we saw Jamie Cook have 40lb+ before Pete Wild took the section with 80lb 12oz.
Jim Jenner was last to weigh in and had around 4 small carp and some silvers.
I didn't get the weigh sheets but it turned out that as expected the results on the team front was very tight, see below:
Results:
1st, Eric Fouracres: Young Ones --97.4
2nd, Keith Clapp: Sedges --93.15
3rd, Tom Mangnall: Mosella UK --83.11
4th, Pete Wild: Mosella UK --80.12
5th, Rich Coles: Fu Fighters --74.4
6th, Mike West: Somerset Carpenters --46.2
Silvers - And silver peg winner
1st John Fuidge: Fu Fighters 23.5
Teams on the day:
1st -Mosella UK: 10 points - 209.05
2nd -Young Ones: 10 points - 155.10
3rd -Sedges: 9 points - 154.12
4th -Fu Fighters: 8 points - 126.12
5th -Somerset Carpenters: 8 points - 99.00
So a tough day for over half of us, with a lot of fish caught around the 1st island (even some pleasure guys had a good few from pegs in the mid 40's).
No match for me next weekend (I don't think), The River Parrett is on the following week with the Pawlett guys, hoping for some rain to give the river a nice flush through.
Until then. take care.
Lee
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