Sunday 13th September 2015 - Avalon Lake pegs 1 - 23

12 of the HLS disciples turned up to one of the Somerset favorite venues whilst others were still away, sunning themselves, or having emergency tooth surgery (Shaun Larkham). The fishery owner Leigh sorted out 12 pegs for us, including the dreaded peg 1. I was third into the bag and pulled out the well known carp peg, No.5, which threw me because I had come with silvers in mind. As I was walking off to my peg there was a howl of anguish behind me which turned out to be Bolton Wanderer George who had drawn peg 1.

My peg for the day….

So, I had peg 5 and I thought that I must fish the water in front of me. There was lots of carp moving around in the gap between the island so I thought I’d keep things simple and set up a pellet waggler and a lead rod to fish the gap. I did also set up a margin rig to fish down the edge to my right. I started out on the waggler and had my first common at 20 mins and then another 10 mins later. However, it did become clear that I was only getting any interest if I was putting the bait close to the reeds. On the hour I switched to the lead to see if they would like a double 10 mm pellet on the hair. I struggled for the whole of 6hrs alternating these approached and only ended up with 5 carp in the net although I lost some foul hookers.

With only 12 fishing it was hard to see what everyone else was doing. New member, John Barker, next to me on peg 6 was doing well with the silvers and would have done better if he hadn’t been pestered by the carp. Down on peg 1 there was a dripping of discontent from George, but he was catching a few silvers.

A pre-match lecture from Roger Coombs to Tony on the art of casting……..

At the weigh in I helped Leigh by putting the scores on the sheet and finding out what people had done for 6 hours. We’ll bypass my pathetic weight and move swiftly on. John Barker did post a reasonable silvers weight of 23lb 2oz plus 11lb 2 oz of carp. Tony Fry then put up the best overall weight, so far, from peg 10 of 42lb 10oz. On peg 17, Paul Bowyer then posted what was the top silvers weight of 27lb 9oz. He caught on a variety of baits but betaine paste appeared to seek out the better bream. Chairman Bob posted the second best silvers weight from peg 22 with 23lb 9oz. All that was left was Ninja Searle on peg 23 and through a lot of wheezing he managed to  tip out  the top weight of 48lb 8oz.

So the payout results were:-

Overall

1^st           Eric Searle           48lb 8oz

2^nd          Tony Fry               42lb 10oz

3^rd          Mike Davis          39lb

Silvers

1^st           Paul Bowyer       27lb 9oz

2^nd          Bob Pascoe         23lb 9oz

These weights were not really the best that Avalon has to offer and was considered a hard days fishing. A post match offer was made by owner Leigh to show how to catch silvers, particularly on peg 1.

Score sheet…..