So Sunday morning came and I wasn't remotely ready to leave with only 45 minutes until the draw, but I rushed my kit into the car and made my way across the Poldens. We had 30 fishing, another good turn out. Everyone was having a laugh and giggle, Jamie Cook had done his back in working at his fishery and looked rather uncomfortable, sadly (in a nice way) he was still able to fish a running line!!
A quick natter and a look up the lake saw high hopes as the weather had changed from a warm sunny Saturday (myself, the wife and 2 kids did a 30 mile bike ride on Saturday.....two of them burnt, 2 had arse ache and I was fine haha) to an overcast day with rain due later on, in fact later on happened 20 minutes later and continued on and off all day.... ho hum, but the fish were active with swirls and blowing galore.........I still wasn't too keen to be fair.
The draw was made, golden pegs, 38, 40 and 26...but 40 was the end peg. I waited, like normal, to do my draw when most pegs had gone, but with myself, Vic, Jamie and Mark Hembury left to pick our pegs (1, 40, 9 and 32 left). I plucked peg 9, a decent peg with silvers history, but I fancied the opposite bank to fair better as the wind was a south-westerly so was blowing up and across the lake.
Jamie drew 40 and given his very decent history at the lake he would be hard to beat.
Vic drew 32, a good area for silvers, Mark was in hit or miss peg 1.
 |
| An old winter pic of peg 9 at Avalon |
I got to my peg, assembled a lead/feeder rod for off the corner of the island, a pellet waggler for a similar area. A margin pole rig to fish corn over 6mm pellets to my right and a silvers rig for 13m just off to the right in front, that rig would do for 6m where I had the same depth. For the silvers I had micros/corn long and caster/worm for 6m. I didn't mix any groundbait or open any meat....I am faffing too much it seems. I should go back to meat/groundbait really, haha.
For company I had Phil Hembury on my right and Mark Watts on the left. I could only see Jamie opposite me and Phil Clapp over on peg 36.
At the all in I potted a small amount of bait on each of the 3 pole lines, within 30 seconds both the swims in front looked like Jacuzzis....hmmm
I began on the pole but nothing happened just odd liner, so out with the waggler as the odd carp was swirling to the feed. But again I couldn't buy a bite. Jamie though had a great 40 minutes and was getting a carp every few minutes on the feeder by the end of the island.
A switch back to the pole at the end of the 1st hour saw me put 2 nice skimmers in the net from the longer line then a 3lb carp gave me a run around on the same rig. It then died so back out with the wag, this gave me a couple fish plus a couple re-rigs as the fish made it to the snags. I only lost 1 float all day though and only half a dozen hook lengths.
It was around half 12 that I was beginning to pack up as I was bored, but the rain got up and I couldn't be bothered to faff around in the rain either so I reluctantly continued.
Anyways into the 3rd hour and I put a couple more silvers in the net, and the idea of 30lb of skimmers had faded, but then the idea of competing on the carp had dwindled too as Jamie was on his 2nd keepnet. Plus all the guys to my right had been doing well. I did manage a couple myself in the 3rd hour moving me up to 5 carp, maybe 18lb.
The 2 guys to my left hadn't had much, Mark hadn't seen a carp all match. Chris Higgs also struggled but caught off the gap late in the day.
The last 3 hours for me was spent watching Jamie amass a decent tally, I had been clicking his catch on my clicker such was my boredom, by the end of the match I had clicked him to 132lb, haha.
Phil was on 6 carp next door, 5 of which came in a 30 minute or so spell after 4hrs.
My last 3hrs saw me put 1 carp in the net on the waggler and another 4 on the lead/feeder, I lost a couple and pulled out of a couple too. My clicker showed 41lb....as it had all match as I had forgot to use it!!
The match ended and I reckoned Jamie had won, plus banked £100 top up for a golden peg win, but Jason King up on peg 20 was rumoured to have caught all day also. Loads of silvers had been had from the pegs in the 30's.
I packed the gear up in the rain, loaded the car and watched the weigh in, well the anglers up to me.
Peg 1 had 60-odd pound, then Mark Sweeting had 80lb from peg 3. Brian Gatis had 22lb of silvers in his catch from peg 5. Mike Davis, whom I thought had done well, put 48lb on the scales, Phil had mid 30lb and then I mustered 4lb of silvers and my 10 carp weighed 41lb....so my clicker was correct, I must set it to 70lb and not use it next time.!!
I went back to the car and then on round to watch Paul Berry on peg 39 weigh in, he had done his usual trick and fished for silvers. The to 2 silvers were Vic and Eric Fouracre with 31lb and 33lb respectively. Paul managed 32lb, so that was close. Looking at the sheet saw Jason had 118lb from peg 20, but there was lots of dnw's from the far end of the lake.
Jamie weighed in, well Eric did the net duties as Jamie's bad back was probably hurting a little more hauling in 147lb of carp and 5lb+ to give him the win with 152lb, so well done that man.
As it turned out my 45lb wasn't too bad, never threatening but okay. Considering I fished like a Tw*t, I reckon 80lb+ would have been had on a normal day in a normal mindset.
Results:
1st. Peg 40. Jamie Cook, 152lb 4oz
2nd. Peg 20. Jason King, 118lb 12oz
3rd. Peg 3. Mark Sweeting, 80lb 10oz
4th. Peg 1. Mark Hembury, 65lb 12oz
Silvers:
1st, Vic Bush, 33lb 14oz, peg 32
2nd, Paul Berry, 32lb 4oz, peg 39
3rd, Eric Fouracre, 31lb 14oz, peg 30
 |
Weigh Sheets
|
So not too bad a day really, loads I did wrong, full well knowing at the time I was doing them wrong, but my stubbornness and lack of enthusiasm defo cost me at least double what I caught I think.
Until whenever, take care.
Lee
No comments:
Post a Comment