avalon again

its been a while since we fished here so i was looking forward to it , as its a venue that can be a bit testing to say the least, with a lot of anglers ,and good ones a that staying away . perhaps its the fact they cant cast a float tight or sit behind a lead rod pinging some 8,s somewhere in the vicinity of there hook bait who knows or it might be just a bit of a difficult nut to crack.
liegh and vic have done a lot of work over the winter and spring , trimming islands repairing platforms installing aerators and chalking the lakes, which seems to have done it good as the colour was a nice brown with no trace of that horrible grey suspension that seems to switch it off making the fish difficult to catch,
i fancied peg 1 today as have never drawn it but it wasnt to be , i waited till the end to draw and it was left to me and martin lenaghan to argue over the last two tickets , as it turned out martingot peg one an i had to make do with 24 (christ its tough sometimes)probably the best peg on the venue , i cant believ fadio didnt draw it as its one he has had several times, he had to make do with 11 which aint bad .
3 pole rigs today two 4x14 j3,s on .18 with a 16 b960 one for out in front and one for down the edge by the reeds, and a 4x12 impact 10 with the same line and hook for shallow against the reeds, and i set up a pellet wag to fish towards the end of the island,
at the start i cupped in some 6,s at 16 mtrs and by the reeds down the edge and fired some 8,s towards the island, starting at 16 mtrs with a banded 8mm i had 1 bite in the first 30 mins , a 10 oz skimmmer being the culprit,and with no fizzing going on the signs werent good, so out on the wag and that was hard , ifished that for about one hour and managed just 2 carp for about 8 lb, i did mis 2 or 3 bites but that was a none starter really, so it was down the edge then,and there seemed to be plenty of fish down there with liners and bites with most of the carp being of a sensible , 3 to 6 lb , feeding with a catty meant that some of the feed went into the reeds , so when the reeds began twitching i would ditch the deep rig and push the shallow rig against the reeds and catch one then go back on the deck, by switching between the deep and shallow rigs i caught odd fish right to the end ending up with 23 carp ,one tench,one skimmer and 2 x 8 oz carp. being up in the corner i couldnt see what was going on , the only person i could seew as gary wall opposite on 23 whose always good for a bit of entertainment as he can swear more in 6 hours than the entire cast of shameless can do in an entire series,. after the match the only person who had caught was dean malin who was admitting to about 100 lb. liegh turned up with the scales and my catch went 129.14 which was enough as dean was close with his guess as his net went 114.15 for second place all his fish falling to 8mm pellet fished between 17 and 20.5 mtrs which takes some doing, being on peg 16 it meant he could just reach the island(to heavy for me and most other people)
3rd alan oram on peg 12 with 75.11
4th gary wall 69.2 peg 23
5th vic bush 66.15 peg 19
6th glen bailey 63.5 peg 5
silvers were won by mike west on peg 7 with 21.12 of skimmers taken at 10 mtrs on soft pellet.
it fished quite well really with fish on most pegs willing to have a bit of a munch so with the improved water colour the signs are that it should fish much better this year and to be fair the anglers that have been fishing it recently have enjoyed some good sport with silvers and carp, as far as the matches go it has never been a fish race venue and i hope it never does as its possible to win and frame off numerous pegs and you are always in with a chance as its a venue where a couple of big fish can always get you back in the hunt