avalon weds

i dont understand why people dont want to go to this venue as its probably one of the fairest commercials in the area as its impossible to predict where the winner is likely to come from , perhaps its the thought of having to think about it to much, and the people who moan the most are the ones who never go there , any way thats the moaning out the way .
after a redraw cos i miss counted i ended up on 13 which is at the end of the second island, for company i had dean malin on my right who was going to fish the feeder to the island , but i cant do thast so i set up a margin rig for corn , a banded pellet rig(4x16) and a paste(yes paste)rig to fish at 14 mtrs , and a wag rig to fish at depth to the island with banded pellet.
at the start i cupped in some corn and 4mm down the margin , some 4,s at 14 mtrs and began firing 6,s to the island, starting on a banded 6 at 14 mtrs the first 30 mins nearly went to plan i had 2 skimmers and hooked 3 carp , one was fouled and came off , one fought like a bream and came off at the net and the other went under the platform and broke me, i did mamage another couple of carp in the next 30 mins , but by now i think dean had 6 carp on the feeder so i was falling behind, a quick look on the p[aste over the same line resulted in about 6 unmissable bites in about as many put ins but i missed them all, a quick look back on the pellet resulted in 2 more carp and a couple of lost foulers, so i refed the pole line and picked up the wag rod, and i soon started getting bites and catching the odd carp and i slowly started to claw back deans early lead apart from a look down the edge which resulted in a 2lb skimmer and a couple of late fish on paste , i stuck with the wag for most of the match and to be honest i was probably beating dean with 20 mins to go , then he went and caught 6 in as many put ins with a 9lb fish last chuck which is what he ended up beating me by , as he was first on the day with 131.14 on peg 11
2nd tony rixon 122.14 peg 13
3rd jamie dyte 104.9 peg 1
4th phil harding 96.3 p[eg 5
5th tim(i,ve lost 30 again)clark 94.13 peg 20
6th nick(plip plop)davidson 78.14 peg 9
silvers went to kev(bagger)davies with 26lb on peg 19 mainly skimmers on corn over micro,s

avalon practice

only 20 booked in today, obviously the teams of 4 anglers feel they now the venue well enough. its a shame really as it fished well and was a very fair match with fish feeding all round and no real hot areas.
i ended up on 37 which is on the right hand side of the gap on the second island i had venue co owner vic bush for company on 38. my peg has a bit of form as a good silvers peg as well as being a good carp peg so i was spoilt for choice as what to do.
i ended up putting 6 balls of g bait at 13 mtrs with some caster in it and some soaked micros and 3,s at 16 mtrs, and i fired some 8,s to the island for the shallow wag, but it never really happened as it took me 30 mins to get a bite over the 13 mtr line and that was a 8oz skimmer folowed by a few small roach all on maggot, so i cupped in some more micros at 16 and picked up the wag rod , although there were fish showing against the island it was a struggle to keep the float tight enough as the wind kept blowing it off and back towards me , i did manage 2 carp on the wag and lost a couple during the match ,in hindsight i should have set up a depth wag or a feeder but as we know hindsight is a wonderful thing, i did manage 2 more carp on the pole plus a few more skimmers on soft pellet over micros plus some small carp of under a pound and these count as silvers as they are to small to put in with there bigger brothers, in the end my 4 carp and silvers went 30.9 for absolutely no good what so ever, so i,m back there again on wednesday to try and sort a few things out,as will chris fox who was on 32 and lost about the same number of carp, ok it was only about 20 lol.
first on the day went to pete wild on 20 with 105.7 all taken on a method feeder with a snowman rig.
2nd was dean malin with 78.12 on peg 7 .now that dynamite have been taken over by rapala bean used a new bait today , it was a 4 inch hair rigged mangum but he had to change the trebles for a single size 14 tubertini 175
3rd c hudson on peg 1 with 75.11
4th paul elmes 73.8 peg 12
5th ben hagg 62.2 peg 13
6th martin lenaghan 61 peg 24 (he keeps doing well off bad pegs)
silvers were won by steve seager on 19 with 16.12 of skimmers with punched marshmallows over jelly tots doin the biz
the truth is out there
but seriously pete wild caught on a method feeder with a 12 inch hooklength and hair rigged pellet(may as well use an ordinary feeder pete)
and dean fished a cage feeder with maggot on the hook, silvers winner steve caught on soft pellet

from bad to worse

landsend today and on my way to pick up dean i passed a mobile speed camera doing closer to 40 than 30 in a 30 limit, my only hope is that as it was on the other side of the road he may not have been able to get a clear view of me as there was some oncoming traffic between me and it , hopefully obscurring the laser(i can always hope). after a good brekkie in lillypool cafe, which now seems back on track with the previous owners back in it was off to the venue.
we had 15 booked in so mike let us use the match and half the speci, then the day got worse as i let andy france draw for me and he handed me 3 on the match lake, probably the worse peg in the bag, with the water levels down 15 inches you only get about 6 inches of water to fish in up on the far shelf, the fish will come up and feed on the shelf but as soon as you put the pole over there heads they bugger off, then when you fire some more bait in and take the pole away they come back within minutes, even if you come away and down the shelf , you dont get a bite, where do they go?
i started at 5mtrs feeding softened 4,s hoping for skimmers and the odd carp whilst feeding in front on the island and another spot at 16 mtrs to the right, and as expected fish were soon tailing on the island in both spots, i also started feeding 4,s with some corn down to my left as it was the same depth as the 5 mtr line ,the same 4x12 rig would do both,
starting at 5 mtrs it took me 10 mins to miss my first bite , then i lost a fouler then i had a carp followed by a good skimmer and by the end of the first hour i had added another carp but no more skimmers , i put a piece of corn on by pulling the band into the corn , dropped it in and missed about 3 bites, so i took banded hair hooklength off and put an 18 xedion on and buried the hook in the corn, i missed a couple more bites on that aswell even coming off the bottom didnt help as i had no bites atall. off to the island in front of me and i had 1 fish there, and thats all i had in the first 4 hours, 3 carp and 1 skimmer , i did manage 9 more in the last 2 hours by switching around on the far bank but you had to tuck the rig into the far bank and try and hide your pole amongst the reeds, i think due to the lack of depth on the far bank there werent possibly enouigh fish to create competition cos although you could see fish on the far bank .it only looked like 2 or 3 fish at a time coming in.
the match was won by our very own mr bean, dave westcott on 25 speci lake with 122.10 taken between the left hand margin and out to the island on pellet
2nd jason radford 89.7 peg 31
3rd martin lenaghan 79.15 peg 19
4th jamie dyte 75.9 peg 13
5th tony rixon 52.2 peg 3
6th nick davidson 51.10
silvers went to chris fox on 29 speci lake(see his blog)
2nd and just behind was leyton(sicknote)palmer with 17.1 on peg 7
dont forget i,m running a practice match on sunday at avalon , book in at the shop on 01179517250

teams of 4,s rnd 2 cider farm

after 3 matches on the bounce and not getting off yarlington i hoped for a draw on another lake , and luckily the team draw put me on 20 dabinet which is just off the gap on the far side, for company i had mike nicholls on 20 which was handy as he has the silvers bug ,so i hoped it would leave the carp for me.
i set up pellet rigs to fish to the island ,one on the deck at 11 mtrs , a shallow one and a corn rig for the margins.
at the start i cupped in some 6,s at 11 mtrs and some to the island at 14 mtrs and began throwing corn and 4mm into the margin, and as expected mike started at 5mtrs and stayed there all match, i dont think he will ever wear out the big sections on his pole.
the first 30 mins werent to bad as i had a couple of carp and some nuisance skimmers, and mike had pretty much the same, then i missed a few bites so it was out with the shallow rig and i had 5 more carp in the next 30 mins and that was the end of the shallow stuff , i couldnt get another bite on it , very strange.
back on the deck and i was getting the odd fish ,so i was quite happy.
2 hours in and i decided to have a go on the island, i hooked one straight away but it went right and went into a bramble and managed to to tie itself with my rig and elastic to the thorns , so that was the end of that, and after the expected mickey taking from mike i decided to leave the island to the fish ,
into the margin and 2 carp and a good skimmwer before that went quiet, so back out to 11 mtrs and i cupped some 6,s at 14 mtrs to the right by some reeds by the island, so the last couple of hours were spent between the 3 areas, that was until a fish stole my 11 mtr rig with the help of a weed bed, so i was going to fish just the 2 lines now then, by the end i had taken 30 carp but they average about 2 1/2 lb so 70lb ish looked good.
the match was won by des shipp on 41 yarlington with 103.15 on pellet fished shallow and 10 carp in the last hour on caster shallow
2nd was the ever consistent rod wootten with 98.1 on peg 1 dabinett
3rd dean malin 89.4 peg 7 dabinett
4th paul elmes 77.13 peg 16 dabinett
5th tony rixon 70.14 peg 20 dabinett
6th mark broomsgrove 69 lb peg 6 dabinett
silvers were won by steve seager with 21.6 on peg 15 on shepherds lake, he beat mike by 6 oz, serves him right as he laughed when i lost rigs
teams on the day
dynamite 34
westerliegh 33
mats maulers 33
g b electrical 31
team keyford 27 1/2
philtone printers 25
thyers 21
avon angling 17
tims tarts 14
charlies angels 13 1/2
avon angling select13
overall
westerliegh 20 1/2
dynamite 19
gb electrical 17
philtone printers 16
team keyford 14
thyers 11
mats maulers 10 1/2
avon angling 7 1/2
charlies angels 7
tims tarts 6 1/2
avon angling select 3
open at avalon next sunday , ring me at the shop to book in and the next round is in a fortnight at avalon.

county champs regional final

all i can say is that the idea we had about tying our hooks on upside down worked as niether me or dean will have to go to barston and packington somers to fish the final, (result). just kidding i did try ,honest.
i drew peg 51 which as i really fancied as i had won off it last weekend, so i set up the same rigs, a shallow rig , a rig for the island, a margin rig and a depth rig to fish 14 mtrs down to the reed bed to my left.
i,m not going to bore you with the details of how my match went as it was pants, it was a struggle to get any consistency to the bites ,it was one of those days when you seemed to get one fish at a time from any one swim, the only place i could get ant activity was by the reeds to my left at 13 to 14 mtrs, i had 2 shallow , 2 on the bare bank opposite and 8 down to my right, for a total of 12 fish which went just over 27lb and absolutely no chance of getting in the top 5.
the match was won by des shipp with 90.14 on peg 32 catching shallow in the reeds
2nd rod wootten 68.14 peg 56
3rd mark leader 65.15 peg 36
4th calum dicks 61.9 peg 4
5th kev molton 37.1 peg 14
6th chris davies 36.12 peg 46

another day on the cider. weds open

we were on yarlington again today, and with gale force winds forcast a draw with the wind off my back would be nice, but no i go and pull 56, which is looking thru a gap between 2 islands so the wind was funnelling straight at me , it was a good job it was a warm wind but i think thats going to change by the weekend with the wind going to be more of a north westerly but less of it.
good to see warren bates here for a bit of a practice, i had a quick chat with him in the carpark and as he had drawn 19 which is a proper flier at the mo i thought he might have a chance of getting a few, that was until he asked me if caster might be worth a go, it seems you can take the boy away from the river but you cant take the river away from the boy, at least the rudd would be grateful, at the end he said he did get a couple of fish on double caster, good for him ,i suppose someone had to buck the trend on that peg sooner or later lol.
back to my peg and i set up a 4x14 rig to fish the margins either side, a 4x16 rig to fish corn at the bottom of the far shelfeach side of the gap and a 4x10 rig to fish to the island.
at the start i cupped in some corn and 4mm,s at 10 mtrs in front and to the right by the reeds at 13 mtrs, the same each side in the margins , and some 6,s to the island.
starting on the 10 mtr line i had a carp first put in then a couple of decent skimmers and a couple more carp, but then i began missing unmissable bites, then i started catching rudd(mint),i put that down to the fact that warren had stopped feeding casters. a switch to the 13mtr line to the right produced the same, so my thoughtys of it being a corn day went out of the window, so i put in a pot of 6,s on the 10 and 13 mtr lines and got the island rig out, to be honest there were plenty of fish up on the shelf but the wind was making it nearly impiossible to present, and i like to kinder my feed in on this venue as it stops the fish dissapearing into the island foliage, but i had to take the pot off the end as it was adding to the wind resistance, so after each fish i potted in about 20 pellets after each fish which seemed to work, also by now i had begun firing some pellets to the reeds on the 13 mtr line, for a bit of a rest i came back to the deep line at 10 mtrs and took 2 carp fairly quickly. i did look down the margins but that only produced rudd and roach but the wind was blowing the rig along so i knocked that on the head, i got the island rig out , took a shot off and went shallow to the 13 mtr line , firing 6,s in and using the same on the hook i soon started to get bites and catch so that was it for me up until the end, i ended up with 30 ish carp , i should have had more but i needed to pull quite hard to get the fish away from the reeds so i pulled the hook on a few , and several were faster than me and made it to the reeds but thats the nature of the venue(at least it will give des something else to moan about at the weekend ha ha).
mark arrived with the scales and the first person to weigh was derek cullip on peg 4 and he had 87.7 with worm over micro,s doing the damage at 5 mtrs, i thought i might run him close as my net would go about 80lb but as i was last to weigh i had to wait.
as it turned out berek had enough for first as my net went 84.14 ,enough for second
3rd dave cockayne 66.4 peg 25
4th pete sivell 65.10 peg 41
5th leyton palmer 58.6 peg 51
6th mike owens 56.2 peg 11

deciderdly hard

cider farm today for a bit of a practice as we have got the regional final for the a t county champs on saturday and round 2 of the teams of 4,s on sunday, 25 booked in today so we were just on yarlington which is a snake lake with plenty of reeds surrounding it giving the fish plenty of places to hide. ideally you want a peg with bare bank opposite you so i wasnt upset when i drew 51 which has about 2 mtrs of bare bank before the reeds start and its only 11 mtrs wide and 18 inches deep against the island, just the job, so iset up a 4x10 rig with a 16 b960 to fish against the island, a 4x14 rig with an 18 xedion hook to fish maggot down the edge,(which i tried several times but the rudd did my head in so wont mention it again).
a .40 rig to fish 11 mtrs down the edge towards the empty peg, and the same rig would do over towards the reeds at 10 o,clock. and a shallow rig just in case.
on the whistle i cupped some 8,s down the edge cupped some 6,s towards the island, and began firing some towards the reeds. starting down the edge it took 10 mins to get a bite and that resulted in a 6lb common which was a known fish as it seems to get caught each week, its reckognised as its got a chunk out of it tail and it is a bit tatty, by the end of 90 mins i had taken 8 carp down the left but none on the deck over by the reeds , i tried shallow but never had a bite on that so i went to the island and took a couple of fish then that went quiet ,i had been feeding to the island with a catty but it didnt seem right as i could see odd fish slurping on the island but i was just getting liners from there tails, so i switched potting a few 6,s abouit 12 inches off the island and fished a banded 6 on the hook whiched seemed to work a bit better, i had kept feeding to the reeds and down the edge but i couldnt raise a bite down the edge and it wasnt until about 90 mins from the end that i began to get indications by the reeds and that was liners so it was out with the shallow rig which produce a couple of carp but the fish didnt seem to want to settle and feed any where , possibly due to the bright sunshine, but by switching between the island and shallow by the reeds i managed to end up with 28 carp, due to the ammount of reeds around the lake i couldnt see another angler so i never had a clue as to what had been caught. i packed up and had a quick walk and the best i heard of was 24 carp when mark arrived with the scales my fish went 68.9 which was just enough to beat nick harvey into 2nd spot with 64lb off peg 19
3rd dave cockayne 62.3 peg 36
4th lewis jones 59lb peg 13
5th rod wootten 58.3peg 22
6th mark broomsgrove 51.10 pegh 25
a lot of the fish were caught shallow today so providing we dont get a frost or a cold wind the same

weds trade match at todber manor

i did actually write a long one but it all went wrong right at the end when i accidently hit the alt button and deleted the poxy lot, so all i,m going to say now is that i had 50lb and came no where, all i will say is dont always pay to fish as the locals advise, generally speaking i tend to fish as i see it on the day, chatting to dean the day befor i said i thought it would be a good idea to feed and fish 8mm pellets as there are lots of 12oz f1,s , but what do i do i go and fish meat as i was told, swim was going nowhere until about 2 hours from the end when i switched to the pellet and i began to get carp fishing in a small gap in the dougal grass, ok so not all were hooked in the mouth but thats something you seem to have to put up with when you fish in 12 inches of water, i,m beginning to think that these venues that people tell you to fish a cetain way with a certain bait are responding to these methods and baits only do so because everyone is fishing that way, after all fish of all species feed the same way in similar venues all over the country so when you visit a different fishery if its similar to another venue you fish, adopt the same methods and baits you normally use(providing they are allowed)and fish to your own strengths not other peoples.
off to cider farm now for my next 4 matches, 2 practices , the county champs final(whose format needs a bit of a rethink possibly as the goal post seem to be moved to suit)and the next teams of 4 match so there should be plenty of bites and some lost kit, its all good for trade lol

good bye gary

the venue was blackford church at 3.30 to say cheerio to gary wall, there was a good turn out with about 110 in attendance, so there was standing room only . gary,s mum and family were pleasantly suprised as they were only expecting between 30 and 50 to turn up, but it went to show how popular this quiet man was with all the local anglers, and some not as local with anglers from north bristol and some from dorset in attendance, as i said he was a quiet man of few words , that was until something went wrong on the bank then the fun started,
he will be missed as he was a part of the somerset match scene, and landsend most of all and i know the duckett,s will miss him tremendously.
i can hear him know in the blackford cemetry moaning and saying who the fxxx put this sxxx peg in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GOODBYE GARY RIP

teams of 4 rnd 1

managed to get 11 teams for this little lge , so we had 4 sections of 11, 2 on woodland ,and 2 on wildmarsh. the lake to draw was probably going to be woodland as its a smaller lake with a higher density of carp ,so most of the weights were going to be from there,
my team draw put me on 24 on wildmarsh ,on the right hand side of the spit, a nice looking peg with an overhanging tree to my right , which should be worth a couple of carp, i set up 2 4x16 rigs , one with a 18 6313 to .10 and on the other a 16 6313 to .12, and a 4x12 on .16 with a 16 xedion hook on the end for the margin.
at the start i cupped in 6 balls of g bait at 13 mtrs , a big pot of casters at 16 mtrs and 2 o,clock and half a pot of softened micro,s at 16 and 10 o,clock, and fed a big handful of casters down the right hand margin,
starting on the groundbait line at 13 mtrs i was getting bites off small roach straight away, but they were to small to be worth doing with. but i stuck with it as i wanted to let the other lines settle, just as well really as on the hour mark i hooked a carp on the light rig, but everything held and a 6 pounder was in the net, which is a proper bonus on this lake, then it was back to the small roach but that had gone a bit iffy now probably due to the carp whizzing round the peg ,so i cupped in another ball then went out onto the eel line , but that was a complete waste of time and i only had 1 roach on that the whole match even though i tried it on several occassions, the micro pellet line wasnt much better as that only produced 2 12oz skimmers and 2 roach, my get out of jail card came down the edge in the shape of 3 more carp and a tench so by the end i thought i had mid 20,s which was usually worth good points on the lake, as it turned out my fish went 28 lb and i won my 6 peg section worth 60 quid.
1st on the day went to leon hubbarb on 26 woodland with 82.11 of shallow caught carp
2nd chris davis 73.9 on bridge peg 41 wildmarsh
3rd pete sivell 67.6 peg 14 woodland
4th steve mayo 65.3 29 woodland
5th tim clark 65.1 18 woodland
6th alan oram 62.12 21 woodland
silvers went to gary etheridge on wildmarsh 61 with 19.15 of skimmers on soft pellet and small roach and rudd shallow on maggot
teams on the day
1st westerliegh 39 pts
2nd philtone printers 34 pts
3rd g b electrical 29 pts
4th dynamite baits 27 pts
4th joint team keyford 27 pts
6th charlies angals and thyers both 21 pts
8th tims tarts and avon angling 19 pts
10th avon angling select 16 pts
11th matts maulers 12 pts

gary wall

found out today gary,s funeral will be held at blackford church on monday 6th of september at 3.30 pm ,with drinks and food after at the sexey,s arms . i,ve been told all are welcome, so hope to see you there.
no flowers please but all donations to go to the local surgery