avalon weds 15 aug no love it's july (judith)

with a dodgy weather forcast avalon can be quite tricky. the wind was supposed to be a southwesterly blowing 20 mph, making proper fishing difficult as it blows up the lake making everything but lead slinging very awkward, but when i arrived at the lake the wind was blowing off the left hand bank which is a westerly, making all styles and methods easy ,the only problem now was the water colour. due to the strong winds and heavy rain of the previous days the water had turned a very cloudy grey which i new from previous years it can make it fish hard.
as i organise the draw i never draw my own peg so that dubious pleasure was left to roger andoniou who some of you may remember from the river and the bristol match group days ,but then again you may not cos he is really old, some say he may even be older than mike nicholls!
anyway back to the draw and pag 12 was mine. getting to the peg i set up the usual 3ssg dumpy wag with a 8 inch 0.18 xedion hook length with a 16 b960 with a hair rig and band for the 8mm pallet. on to the pole and the shallow rig for stalking which proved to be o no no due to the water colour. a 4 x 14 rig for banded pellet on the deck and a paste rig urgh
all in at 1,15 and half a large pot of 6mm pellets were spread around at 14 mtr,apouch of 8mm fired to the island and a pot of 6mm under the tree to my left. starting on the deck with a 8mm banded pellet at 14 mtr i never had an indication for 30 mins when i missed a bite,bugger.
i was a little concerned as there was no fizzing in the peg anywhere very strange, mike west next door had had 1 bite at half depth and a 5 pound carp was the result. all the time i had been firing 8mm pellets to the island where carp seemed to be feeding quite happily,but i stuck with the pole as i couldnt believe i coulbnt catch on it .it took me 1 hour and 40 mins to get my first fish that was about 7lb next put in and a lost fish then nothing again.
2 hours in and onto the wag,first chuk had a bite and the line snapped somewhere above the float,very strange.apart from 3 fish on the pole during the rain i stayed on the wag for the rest of the match ending up with 15 carp for 89.6 and second, the match was won by gary wall on peg5 with 11 fish for 93.11, third place was taken by jim baines with 50.1 on peg16 and then alan oram with 46lb. a quick mention for phil harding who has now caught his first 20 pounder 2 weeks ago and his first ghost carp today,where has he been.
back to avalon and to be honest it fished better than i expected with that colour in the water,given a few days of fine settled weather the colour will drop out and it will fish ok again.if anyone is interested i am running a match there on the 26 july with a 12 draw ,give me a ring at the shop if interested. well thats the end of my first blog and to be honest i think i have waffled on a tad to much. judith thought i was re righting war and peace lol