Avalon, 13 April 2014 (21 pegs)

This time round I thought it wouldn't be necessary to bore you with the intricate details of how I managed to catch 2 carp, (one on meat from the margin and one that tried to drag my tip rod into the lake)
And a solitary skimmer on lead / pellet, plus a rudd that took a shine to an 8mm pellet on the shallow wag to give me a grand total of 13lbs.
Similarly, I had no intentions of mentioning that I put four of my best floats in a tree.
I also wasn't going to bore you with the fact that there were 2 pegs left in the drawbag ... one was peg 24 (one of the best pegs on the lake and the golden peg that was worth £100), the other being peg 3 which couldn't have been more undesireable,
and that Will Dearlove ran to his peg as fast as his little legs could carry him with a smug grin on his face.
I wasn't going to mention the fact that the first carp that I hooked in the margin would have secured me another section win if it hadn't have swam out of the landing net on the first attempt and then shed the hook just as it was about to revisit it.
And I definitely wasn't going to say anything about the fact that Alan Healey weighed exactly the same as me but  his weight included 4oz of micro pellet and Vic Bush wouldn't re-weigh him.
But it seems I have done!
What I did intend to do though was to impress you all with my awesome photography skills (below)

Signed & framed prints available from the Psv online shop

So having not mentioned any of the above, on to the nitty gritty.

21 fishing today with 20 in the pools so the payout was top 2 overall, 2 silvers as there are now 25lbs of skimmers on every peg (apparently they've grown a bit) and 4 sections of 5 anglers to give everyone half a chance of picking up something.

Vic had sorted the pegging for us giving us 5 pegs round the back of the Long Island at the top (good) end of the lake so a decent bit of room for all and it was a glorious day for a change with almost unbroken sunshine and a gentle breeze so some good weights were anticipated.

Unfortunately it didn't quite go to plan as the lake fished much harder than expected.

It turned out to be a 3-horse race between Will on golden peg 24, Brian Shanks on 9 and Rich Britton on 12.

But when conditions favour fishing the pellet wagg Rich takes some beating and today was no exception with Rich taking the honours with 54lbs caught on the wagg and straight lead along the end of the island.

It was close though as Brian finished just 1½ lbs behind with 52-8 caught on the pole shallow with pellet.

Will had a bit of a "torrid" day losing 16 fish down the edge and his catch rate wasn't helped when an inquisitive pleasure angler decided to stand on the bridge and lean over the water where he was fishing.

Will did put him right but the damage had already been done. Just as well it wasn't Dean Malin fishing the peg!

The silvers honours went to Matt Challenger on 16 with 30-3 of mainly skimmers and a 3lb 8oz python all caught on worm over chopped worm / caster so Vic's estimate of 25lbs was pretty well spot on.

Runner up in the silvers was Alan Healy with 8lbs from peg 11.

Section winners were: Chris Gay (peg 5), Chris Szakacs (20), who was the only one to weigh in in that section and Mark Radford (26).

There was a bit of controversy however, as in the 3rd section 4 out of the 5 anglers framed which meant that Stevie Wynne would have claimed the section by 4x default if he had weighed in (which he didn't), so after a steward's enquiry it was decided to pay the unclaimed section money to 3rd place (Will), giving Mark Radford that section by default which everyone agreed was the fairest way to resolve the situation.

So a lesson to be learned there!

Full Result:

1. Rich Britton (peg 12) ...... 54-0
2. Brian Shanks (9) ........... 52-8
3. Will Dearlove* (24) ........ 47-0
4. Matt Challenger (16) ..... 33-11
5. Mark Radford (26) ......... 31-3
6. Chris Szakacs (20) ........ 29-9
7. Chris Gay (6) ............... 15-9
8. Ryan Radford (30) ......... 15-5
9. Steve Burgess (3) / Alan Healey (11) ... 13-0
10. Adam Caswell** (7) ....... 11-5
11. Keith Ray (29) .............. 10-12
12. Ron Hardiman (5) .......... 10-5
13. Derek Lucas (1) ............ 4-13
14. and 7 dnw's

* golden peg 
** silver peg

Silvers

1. Matt Challenger (16) ..... 30-3
2. Alan Healey (11) ........... 8-0
3. Adam Caswell (7) ......... 7-11
4. Mark Radford (26) ........ 5-8
5. Will Dearlove (24) ........ 4-8
6. Keith Ray (29) ............. 2-4
7. etc

Next week we are back at Viaduct (Campbell) which is a full house with a reserve list, so if anyone who is booked in can't make it can you please let me know sooner rather than later to enable someone else a chance to fish.