Monday 8 August 2016

Saturday Combi Series, Round 4, Avalon Fisheries. 06-08-16

A quickish update on this round of my Combi Series, this round was held on the Avalon Fisheries complex. This fishery is great for the type of Series I am running, every peg has a few carp in, every peg has a decent head of silvers to catch, from rudd to perch, crucians, tench and the mainstay that are skimmers. Any bait will catch them so being a predictable venue isn't what it is.

Anyways on to the match, we ended up with 16 fishing, 2 couldn't make it but their pools were paid so as not to make a difference to the monies. So 3 sections of 6 as normal, but Section A would have 6 full pegs while the other 2 would have 5 present anglers.

The lake looked fishy, the weather was set to hot/roasting and an array of tan-lines would be present come 5pm!!

I drew peg 7, a decent peg that is on the end of the 1st island, but the trees meant that the sun wouldn't be shining on the water, which is what I fancied for the carp, though maybe the silvers wouldn't care for the bright conditions and we all expected lower than normal weights, especially on the silvers front.
For company I had, on peg 9 (good silvers peg) Paul Berry, an angler whom would be trying to catch some silvers, and to be fair he usually does ok for them at the fishery.  On my right I had all round good angler and the fishery owner, Vic Bush, he was on peg 5 and it resembled an aquarium with all the carp sat off the gap in the island. Vic was/is leading the league's silvers tally and going into the round he was close to being top overall. Lance Tucker was on peg 3. Father and Son duo Alex and Steve Nadin completed my section.

Peg 7, Avalon Fisheries.
I assembled a small feeder for towards the island for banded pellet, a pellet waggler rod.
3 pole rigs were also ready for action, one for silvers, but never had a bite on that, one for paste at 6m and lastly one for meat/corn down to my left and empty peg 10.
Bait, 6 and 8mm pellets, 8mm meat, past and some corn.

The all-in was called at 11am and after depositing various baits in various spots I began on the feeder.
25 fishless minutes passed before I tried the waggler, netting a couple of 3lb fish in the following 30 minutes. That was the 1st hour gone, 2 carp.
The second hour was hard, the sun was baking, the fish tricky, I could see loads in front of  Vic, but he was more interested in keeping his silvers points tally rolling and would only target carp every now and then.....which during the day he did with relative ease!! I do tend to draw near match winners....on going tale that doesn't go away!!
I squeaked a couple small skimmers and a couple roach during the 2nd hour, and going into hour 3 I could hear that Lance, Paul and the Nadin duo were not hauling so it was tight (except Vic).
I did manage 2 or 3 carp on the waggler and a couple silvers from the margin during the 3rd hour. I was suffering with a few foul hooked fish on all my lines and during the match I had around 14 foul hooked fish lost and 6 or so where I had the hook pull...never good.

Moving into the 2nd half of the match and I was on 4 or 5 carp and a handful of silvers.
The 4th hour was busy for me, mostly foul hooked fish, I got one in but lost a few. I also managed a couple 12oz chub on the feeder, nice little bonus fish.
The 5th hour saw me look down to the pallet and again a skimmer or 2 came my way and I also hooked and lost a nice common, defo foul hooked as I had a scale on the hook. I could see some fish under the platform but couldn't or rather, wouldn't, come out and feed.
I mugged a slurper from the edge between me and the pallet, lowering the bait into it's mouth in the edge. I also mugged a 3lber on the waggler, my millionth attempt during the match to mug a carp on the waggler, when I did it was the smallest I had seen all day....typical.

By now Vic was plenty ahead of everyone around me, I reckoned on him having 50lb+ of carp and 20lb+ of silvers, but my 7 carp was clicked to 30lb wouldn't be too bad in the section for points scoring. But Paul and Steve only had 1 carp each while Alex had maybe 4 or 5, but with this lake they can be 2 to 4lb smaller fish or if they were caught on the pole, 8lbers, the pole fish are often bigger here. So he may have 30lb+ of carp. Steve and Paul did have relatively nice nets of big skimmers.
My last hour didn't give me a carp, only a single small skimmer came my way along with a few foul hooked fish on paste, they didn't want to get their heads down and feed. I also pulled out of a couple fish on the waggler.

The all out was called and the gear packed up. No scales duty for me either, the Fishery helpers did this, nice touch.
Buy the time the scales had got to me I had seen Mike West (covering for Ziggy) had moaned around 70lb on to his hook, he wasn't even going to go to his peg, me and Vic commented we would have been happy with peg 32, end peg and room!!
There was a couple 50 to 60lb nets and Mark Bromsgrove put 18lb+ of silvers on the scales.
Alex and Steve had weighed in and I was confident that I had slightly more than Alex on the carp weight, but was hoping Vic had top section silvers and carp weights, and that Lance had less than me.
So a default section carp pick-up would be handy.

I weighed my Silvers,  and that was 12lb+, slightly unexpected, I thought I had 5lb or so. My carp weighed 33lb so my clicker was accurate. I ended with 45lb and a few ounces.
Vic comfortably had the most of both silvers and carp in the section and had 90 something pound to win the match overall, and take the second perfect 12 point score of the series, but as I only pay top carp and top silvers in section on the day I waited to see Lance weigh. I manged to just pip his 20-something pound of carp, so I did get a default payment.

Results:
1st, Vic Bush. 97-05, from peg 5
2nd, Lewis Jones, 74-00 from peg 26
3rd, Mike West (covering Ziggy), from peg 32

1st Silvers, Vic Bush, 25-03
2nd Silvers, Steve Nadin, 19-05 (p12)
3rd Silvers, Mark Bromsgrove, 18-12 (p16)

Section envelopes/payouts:
A) Carp, Lee Williams, 32lb 8oz (default)
A) Silvers, Vic Bush, 25lb 3oz
B) Carp, Dave Chidzoy, 34lb 10oz (p19)
B) Silvers, Mark Bromsgrove, 18lb 12oz
C) Carp, Lewis Jones, 74lb
C) Silvers, Rich Lovering, 11lb 8oz (p27)

So I collected my 1st envelope of the series and my first in a while.....
I had enough carp on the hook in some form or another to have 50 or 60lb at least, but that is fishing.
Conditions were tricky and we may have done better with some cloud cover, but it was fair as is the norm for the lake.

In the standings, all 3 categories are close and as many as 9 guys have a chance of a top 3 or 4 finish in the Combi Points Overall and half a dozen are in with a chance of a top-2 finish in the Carp and Silvers categories!! Some guys dropped upto 6 places, one angler jumped 7 spots overall, so plenty to go for in a couple weeks at Viaduct Cary, how will people play their cards?
Interestingly Vic, the silvers and overall leader has a stand-in for that round....Oh the pressure Mr G...!!
Paul Nichols, who has a chance of a top 2 finish in the carp payouts also has a stand-in.....Good luck Emma. x




The above all show current standings after round 4....Close!!!

With 6 points on offer in the sub-categories and 1 point for the combined section win, it is close!

Next up for me was Viaduct Campbell with the PSV crew.

Until next time,
Take Care.
Lee




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