Thursday costcutter, avalon

Only 9 turned up today, probably the crappy weather forecast kept a few indoors. We spread the pegs out on the left hand bank as the wind was meant to swing round to a more westerly direction so it would be off our backs , not blowing strongly up the lake from the carpark as it was when we were getting ready to draw, kev molten drew for me and handed me 9, means nothing really as its a venue where it's nearly impossible to predict the winning peg, perhaps that's one of the reasons people don't like it as there are less excuses if they do bad, also it's not normally a big weight venue with someone running away with it.
Rigs today were two silver ones , a 1g bodied and a .75 g pencil to fish at 4 and 9 mtrs, no chance of fishing any longer as the wind wasn't showing any signs of changing direction, even 9 mtrs was going to be tough, I also set up a wag rod to fish at the end of the island in front , in case the wind eased or changed direction, I was trying out a new shimano beastmaster 9/11 wag rod , and it does feel quite nice , but catching a fish on it would be the best test, but unless the conditions changed it wasn't going to happen today.
At the start I cupped in 3 balls of groundbait with some casters in at 9 mtrs and one ball at 4 mm, and just about managed to get some 6mm hard pellets to the island , straight out to 9 mtrs with maggot on, 5 mins later and a small perch was swung in, a change to caster and 5 minutes later and I had a 2lb skimmer, at the same time terry Bruton on peg 7 was netting a carp caught from his margin, signs looked good but a definite false dawn as terry never had another bite all day, the longer line was really hard to get presentation on due to the wind which was so strong I had to let the pole blow round on several occasions, it was that fierce, but at least the promised rain didn't seem to be arriving.
I tried the close line but apart from a perch and two small skimmers that was biteless, for most of the match I had to battle the wind at 9 mtrs for an odd bite, the small roach which can be a real nuisance at this venue when fishing maggot were absent today, very strange after another good skimmer on caster I spent the rest of the match on double maggot at 9 mtrs apart from a 15 minute spell when the wind finally decided to do as it was forecast and blow from behind, I did have two bites on the wag and landed two small carp, and it has to be said the rod felt nice with a good cushioning action when the hooked fish are under your feet, and at £110 quid for a 9/11 foot rod it seems like good value for money.
I had odd skimmers during the match ending up with 10 good ones and the two carp for an estimate of 25lb, which sounded as though it would be enough for today, and luckily it was as the skimmers went 23.8 and my two carp were 5.8 for 29lb total.
2nd rich Coles on 5 with 18.10
3rd Mike west on 23 with 16.6
4th kev molten on 17 with 11.7
5th Chris Rolf on peg 1 with 9.11
6th john Bradford on 13 with 9lb
Not an easy day certainly not helped with the strong winds, oh well off to viaduct on Sunday for the final round of the silvers league then back up to harescombe next Thursday , hopefully the wind and rain may have stopped by then , I'm getting sick of chasing a float through my pegs being pushed by
A gale , o for a wind against trip swim.