25 HLS anglers assembled at the Vic Bush arena, commonly
known as Avalon Fisheries. The sun was out and with a slight breeze we debated
our first 2016 visit. A slight green tinge to the water was met with negative
comments but the staff had recently put 4 tonnes of chalk in the water to clean
the bottom debris. I was early and so had plenty of time to walk around the
lake and say morning to a few bivvy boys. There was also a couple who had
driven down from the Midlands to fish the Moors lake. One of the guys was
unloading and declared to forgetting his landing net. I told him that Vic will
happily sell him any Mosella gear you should need.
Pegs 1-34 were closed for us and Vic selected 25 pegs from
these. Peg 32 was drawn as the golden peg. I drew second and pulled out number
1. Well, I’m not sure of my reaction but many found this highly amusing. Shame
I had loaded all the gear onto my barrow because I was also parked near the
left hand gate. Vic and a couple others advised me that there had been a lot of
bream caught from the peg recently. I think ‘had been’ is the important bit to
remember at this point. Vic gave me the info on how to target these ‘slabs’ and
I bought his enthusiasm, only getting my pole out and 3 top kits. I set up 2 kits
to fish at 11m straight ahead and then 8m at the 2 o’clock position. The 3rd
rig was for left/right margins. My plan was to fish 4mm/6mm expanders over
micros. One set of expanders was sweetened and the other set normal. At the
horn, I put a pot of micros on both lines and then tried both margins for some
early bonuses on single maggots. One skimmer obliged on the 3rd put
in.
Out on the 11m line it took about 15 mins before my first
bite and this seemed to be the timescale for most bites. I found the sweetened
pellets favorite and so I had a slow progression of roach and skimmers until
an 8lb common got in on the act and tested my 18 hook and 0.10 bottom.
Peg 1 and the view down the left hand bank.
It was now about 12:30 and not a lot seemed to be happening.
Shane Western was the nearest to me on peg 3 and biteless. The only action I
could see was Steve King flashing out the pellet waggler and connecting with a
few carp on peg 6. There wasn’t any news of excitement reaching me. I had been
feeding micros every put in and was hoping the better bream would turn up and
add some pounds to my meagre weight. I had a few more skimmers and one decent
bream until about 2 o’clock when the swim went dead. At 2:30pm I decided to get
out the tip rod with a straight lead and sent if there was any carp under the
tree of the end bank. Still dead at 3 o’clock and Shaun Larkham came down the
bank on the way home and advised that he had not had a bite and it was proving
hard for most. I’m not generally one for packing up early but today was the
exception. I tipped back the 8lb common and probably 5lb of silvers.
Treasure Tone sent me the score sheet and……….
Steve King took top honours with 30lb and that man Western on Peg 22 went home with another brown envelope after weighing in 24lb 1oz. Dave Allen had 3rd overall and so by default Bolton Boy Fletcher got the Silvers with 13lb 5oz.
12 anglers Did-Not-Weigh and top weight of 30lb...... hmmmm hard days fishing.
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