Float Only Series, Round , Avavlon, Sunday 31st July 2016

For the second day running, I pulled out peg 22, different venue today though, a visit to the peace and tranquility of Avalon, I had fishery owner Vic Bush on end peg23 and Rich Lacey on 21.  Two wagglers set up, one for full depth and one shallow, a rig for skimmers, but as yesterday, the conditions weren't conducive to skimmers feeding. a full depth banded pellet rig, a paste rig and a margin rig, although 22 has no margin to speak of and its 4-5' deep, little confidence in it as I have never caught a carp from the margins here.

I was expecting to catch straight away on the waggler, even if it was only one or two fish, this didn't happen. A look over the pole line I'd fed at 14m with a soft pellet produced a skimmer, this joined a 4oz roach in the net that took a 6mm pellet on the shallow waggler. There was a bit of fizzing, so a look with paste brought my first carp and after a long wait, my second.  A look round all the other lines, deep and shallow waggler were all in vain, Vic was catching, but the pegs to my right were struggling as much, if not more than me.

I decided to give the waggler a prolonged spell and upped the feed, this seemed to draw a few fish in and I had a couple, before hooking a snag - no idea how, I was clipped up and had cast dozens of times to the same spot.  That was the first lost float, next was a better fish that dived into a snag off the end of the island, float two gone. That was the start of 3 more floats biting the dust in snags, two visits and 10 floats light.........

I had a couple more fish on the waggler before ending with one on the paste, 10 carp for 37lb and a couple of pound for my skimmer and roach. Frustratingly Tony said, when he weighed me in,  he had 9 carp for 60lb - no idea if its possible to pick out the better fish or if its pot luck.

I beat a couple of pegs to my right, but not Vic who had 17 carp and the small size of the fish dumped me down the section.  Frustrating day, not sure what I would do differently next time, apart to hope for 6-8lb fish instead of ones less than 3 1/2lb.