Bristol PSV Fishing Club: Avalon, 29 June (11 pegs)

Only 11 fishing today which was a bit of a shame really as last time we were here, back in April we had 21 fishing but we had a few out this week on international duties and some away at Whiteacres, plus one wasting a hospital bed so just one of those things really.

Anyway Vic gave us pegs 5 up to 20 which still gave us plenty of space and avoided "death row" at the car park end! (So no chance of me drawing peg 3 again).
As ever, owner Vic was on hand with plenty of advice and had his usual collection of recycled floats on sale in the shop.

Adam Caswell got himself a couple as he doesn't have any oh his own and usually scrounges them off his neighbours.

The interesting example he's holding below I believe is called a "ducker".

The idea being that you chuck it out, count to 10 and hope it reappears from it's "ducking". If it doesn't come up after ten seconds it means you have missed a bite!

I don't think Adam caught on it today.

Anyway, as it turned out the area to be in was the top end of the lake which was occupied by Lionel Legge in 20, Adam Caswell in 19 and Will Dearlove in 17.

Lionel had a bit of a torrid day and was hooking and losing carp to the gap in the island from the word go.

I think his final tally was 8 floats so look out for those in the shop over the next few weeks.

Regardless of his tackle losses he still did enough to win the match with a respectable 95-5..

Will was 2nd with 87lbs exactly and sandwiched between them Adam managed to foul-hook 56-4 for 3rd which also included the top (accidental) silvers weight of 10-8 which was 20lbs shy of what can be caught in silvers from any peg (so I'm told)!

As for my day I was a tiny bit late arriving as we were held up a bit at Shipham cafe which was packed to the rafters with campers but it was worth the wait, not just for the enjoyable breakfast but also for the pleasant views provided by the young lady dishing out the grub!

Anyway, as Vic had organised the draw I abandoned my normal routine and took my chances with the rest of the oiks and pulled out peg 7.
I wasn't too disappointed with this as although I would have preferred to have been a bit further up the lake, it was a nice warm day with minimal wind so anybody was in with a shout (it seemed).

For company today I had Local boy Lee Williams on 7 who would be fishing for silvers and Brian Shanks on end peg 5 which is the peg with the boarded off gap.

My peg looked lovely with a short chuck across to a small bay and an overhanging tree on the island slightly to the right. There wasn't too much in the way of overhanging vegetation and plenty of fish were cruising around across so I had high hopes although Lee had the end of the island in front of him and there were loads of carp showing but I was expecting him to ignore the obvious and concentrate on catching whitebait and 30lbs of skimmers.

As usual my main plan of attack was to be the pellet wag (I had plenty of hook lengths tied up) with a tip rod in reserve to fish a conker and I also set up a margin rig for paste.

At the all-in all three of us started on the wag but it was soon apparent that the carp weren't going to give themselves up too easily as although they were readily munching the loose fed pellets they were avoiding the ones with a hook attached.

At one point I fired in 5 pellets and counted 5 swirls around the float which never even twitched!

Mr Shanks was hooking odd ones but they were mostly taking him through the reeds causing the loss of his best and second best floats plus numerous hook lengths accompanied by a lot of moaning.

He eventually gave up and reverted back to his comfort zone fishing the pole shallow.

Lee meanwhile couldn't make his mind up whether he was fishing for silvers or carp but was getting a few of both and I was getting the odd fish but it was slow going.

I had a go at playing conkers but that proved disastrous as the paste I made up the previous night was a bit wet still and despite squeezing it around in a towel it was flying off on the cast and feeding Lee's skimmer line which would explain why he started catching carp on it.

A look down the edge with paste produced a fish first put-in but it was the smallest carp in the lake and the second put-in it's granddad took the paste and went for a stroll through the reeds destroying the rig, my best paste float and the elastic so that was abandoned.

My disappointing efforts gave me a grand total of 36-4 against Lee's 53-8 and Brian whinged his way to 39-5 so I was thoroughly "chip-shopped" and there was no trip to Curry Kings!
Lee's version of events can be found here.

Full Result: