avalon open

a good turnout today with 34 booked in but with tom thick unable to get a lift we had to make do with 33, so we used the whole lake, with the weather forcast giving a dry day and westerly winds of up to 12mph it all looked good , then the wind started blowing at about 25 mph making a draw on the left hand bank looking good as the wind would be off your back, with fabio,s drawing arm being on song i let him draw for me, oh well it had to come to an end sooner or later as he drew 21 for me which is on the left hand bank(wind of my back again)facing the middle of the top island, i had tom mangnall to my right on 20 which is a good peg as there is a small gap in the island which always holds some fish , and alan oram on the left who would cut off any fish coming from that end of the island, so i couldnt see me getting much of a return from this swim.
i set up a meat rig for the right hand margin as it has a bit of form down by the reeds, a .5 rig to use at 13 mtrs with soft pellet or mags over micro,s and a 4x14 for banded pellet at 16 mtrs plus the mandatory pelletwag for this venue.
at the start i cupped in some micro,s at 13 ,some 6,s at 16, fired some 6,s to the island and began plopping some meat down to the reeds.
begginning at 13 mtrs with soft pellet i never had a bite , a switch to mags on the hook produces a couple of small rudd on the drop but i never had a bite on the deck there, so after 20 mins it was out to 16 mtrs but with no bubbles coming up i wasnt confident, and with tom on 20 already having a couple of small carp in the net my pound was looking dodgy. on the hour mark i finally had a proper bite which ended up with a 6 pounder gracing the net then i had 3 good skimmers in the next 30 mins, and that was my lot on the pole plus i never had a bite down down the edge , but as the reeds werent knocking i didnt pay it to much attention. the rest of the match was spent on the wag but ecven that was hard as there didnt appear to be enough fish there to make them compete , you could see the odd fish slurping off the island most of the match but they are hard to tempt when they are doing this, plus the fishery could do with a bit of a trim as there are lots of branches and reeds on the islands making it difficult to get tight. i managed 8or9 smallish carp on the wag but it was hard as the wind although being off my back it tended to swirl a bit as it hit the island and came back but it was no where near as difficult as must have been for those opposite, my 3 skimmers went 6lb and with my 9ish carp i had a total of 38.14 for nothing today, i did lose 4 fish on the wag which any one would have given me the section but adrian jeffery won the section with 40.2 which is good to see as its nice to see anglers of his advanced age still being able to do a bit.
any way back to the full result tim ford on 26 won with 61.14 taking 90% of his catch in the last couple of hours on the pole using banded 8,s feeding 6,s and catching at full depth (i think)and it was good to see a thatchers angler fishing properly and not chucking the method
2nd went to phil (fabio)harding with 59.9 on 26 which is a good result off that peg as its not the best
3rd tom mangnall on 2o with 53.8 who i think would have probably won if he hadnt spent most of the day telling his girlfriend he loved her(sickening to listen to)or throwing all his kit up and i mean up the trees on the island
4th dave roper on 7 with 53.7
5th nick collins peg 3 51lb
6th adrian jeffery peg 29 with 40.2
silvers went to john(the gimp)bradford on peg 48 with 23.4 of skimmers tench and chub on worm at 13mtrs
off to landsend on weds for a topset plus one match which should be interesting and on sunday its off to chilton trinity on wildmarsh for a float only match so if ant one is interested in either ring me at the shop on 01179517250 to book in