Breakfast was in the M&M cafe in Somerton (went in here Monday to Friday) with the good lady Mandy making sure we were well fed, and breakfast was always ready within a few minutes. It isn't a long drive to Avalon, and I do like driving in this part of the world as there is so much wildlife around. When I got to the fishery I could already hear and see some carp were spawning, that wasn't going to help the fishing I thought.
Vic Bush had given us both banks nearest the car park, with peg 1 having recently won a match it might be OK, I also thought the opposite end pegs would be good as would 44 which had carp showing all the time in the gap. I drew peg 46, not on my list of what I wanted. We had 13 anglers fishing today in total, and once again Gordon was next to me on 48 on the end bank, on 44 was Mark Tanner. I did my best to convince Mark to fish in the gap with his favoured pellet wag but he was having none of it and fished to the right of the gap.
It was a hot and sunny day with no wind where I was, I thought it would be a tough match and with no maggots or casters it would be carp or nothing as I thought the bream would be off eating carp spawn. I had an island I could chuck to, the point looked inviting and so I set up the lead and pellet wag to fish here, also a paste rig, a shallow rig, mugging rig and a margin rig. A lot of options covered today.
Vic had told me that shallow fishing had been the best of late and with the weather the way it was it was likely to be the same, so I started fishing shallow with pellet, even though there were no signs of carp in the peg. I gave it an hour shallow and had just the one 2oz roach, a look deep on the paste was a waste and I never had an indication. I saw a ghost carp come through and tried to mug it, hooked it and it went off and sanpped 0.19. Onto the pellet wag and I nailed a carp second chuck so was off the mark after about 90 minutes, but any thoughts of a decent run were wrong and after I got snapped by a carp I never had anything else for ages. I chucked the lead as I had seen a couple of carp caught on it, but again this was no good. I was going nowhere and there appeared to be no fish in the peg. Gordon only had 1 carp, but Jon Darby on peg 1 had landed a number of carp from the end bank. Mark Tanner had about 5 carp on the pellet wag.
I got bored and went for a walk, Mark was getting plenty of indications on his pellet wag and the carp were still showing themselves in the gap. Glenn on 42 had not caught on his paste but had had a couple of carp on lead and wag. Chris Ollis was catching whitebait and Gary B had a couple of carp shallow. I went back to my peg and tried hard for another hour and not a sign, went for another walk. Glenn was playing a large carp caught on paste but hooked in the tail, he played it for a long time until eventually his top set exploded, oh dear. Gary B had a few other carp. It seemed the only other anglers catching were Jon and that man Woody again who was on peg 11 catching on the pellet wag.
Back to my peg and I noticed the the bay I had opposite me was now going into the shade and a decent number of carp were appearing in the peg, I think they were the ones that had been spawning earlier and were now moving back out into the lake. It wasn't easy casting into the arc of the bay but there were odd fish there. I fished with renewed enthusiasm just to try to get a bit of sport, I got a few carp, and even mugged a brute off the rod end lol. It was never enough but I ended up with 56lb 6oz. That actually overtook Mark on 44 who slowed up and had 52lb 14oz. The only angler who beat me on my bank was Gary who got second with 74lb 8oz.
Winner was... yep Woody with 131lb 3oz all on pellet wag, Jon Darby was third with 70lb 11oz. A bit gutted I missed out on a pick up, I think had I fished in the bay for the first 4 hours I may have had a few more carp, but we will never know. Chris Ollis bag of whitebait weighed 9lb and that was all that was needed to win the silvers.
A picture of my best two carp here. Whilst it was a tough day I was able to listen to lots of birds I hardly get to hear these days, cuckoo and willow warbler are much more scarce than they used to be. Thankfully this area has been well looked after and managed to encourage many birds to breed here, and I hope they return year after year.
The plan for the evening changed completely, and I got confused, I ended up back at the Lodge on my own, everyone else had driven straight to the pub lol. I jogged up the footpath and into town to get a cool pint of Thatchers and another decent meal in the White Swan.
No comments:
Post a Comment