Sunday 31/05/2009 - Tony Rixon Float Only Individual League - Round Two - Avalon

What a beautiful day, wall to wall sunshine, with shorts and tee shirts order of the day, must be the first time for well over a year. Brenda made sure I was fully lotioned up before I left home! It was good to see that Vic and Lee had sorted the access road by filling in all the pot holes. Well done mate’s. Everyone expectations were for low weights due to the conditions – particularly the Silvers. We were not disappointed in this respect, Late May/early June can be a bit iffy for fishing.

I had drawn John “The Gimp” Bradford in the knockout. Fortunately, John has his son and family over for three weeks from Canada and had to pick them up from the airport. I wonder if his son fishes? Anyway John you’re out of the knockout, I did catch a fish! However, Kevin Moulton blanked in my section, so it could have been closer!!

I walked the venue with Bela and was hoping to draw the Specimen Lake as it appears to be more consistent for the Silvers (this proved to be a correct prophesies). However, I drew peg 15 on the Match Lake. It is an open peg with an island chuck to the left (I wish I could have cast to the right as well, as the wind was blowing in to that island and was in shade all day. I wasn’t sure about the peg, but thought that with the number of anglers fishing an open peg may be beneficial (somewhere for the Carp to "back-off"). I set up 6 AAA pellet waggler, paste rig, soft pellet rig both at 13 metres, a paste rig for the Right hand margin and a Ronnie rig with caster. I fed all the lines and went out on the pellet waggler, with no feed – no result. I fed a bit of 8mm pellet but the wind conditions weren’t right. Casting to my left meant casting in to the wind. Out on the soft pellet and a lost foul hooker resulted even though I had played it to the net! I then had a run of three small skimmers!! I changed to the paste rig which resulted in a 4lb Carp straight away. Back out on the paste and latched in to a double figure Ghost Carp. With a lot of bad angling I lost it in the near side margin (I bloody well knew that the margins on this venue are a snag-pit – why did I let it go there!!). Another lost foul hooker followed, then nothing, I didn't get another bite on the paste. I then tried the left hand margin with paste, only to get nibbles from the high population of Motherless Minnows – not a good sign. Tried the Ronnie rig and caster and had one Ronnie, one Rudd, and one Chub!! Out on the waggler for the rest of the match and had another three Carp. With five minutes to go I hooked another decent Ghost Carp. I decided that this would be my final cast of the match so played the fish carefully. After the all out I was still playing the double figure Ghost Carp. For some reason I felt it necessary to shorten the 13 foot rod by moving down off the handle. Whilst going for the landing net the Ghosty made yet another run which left the hook length exposed without the action of the rod. Some rod abuse followed. Another bit of bad angling, I think. I need to look in to why I needed to shorten the rod. I weighed 22lb 8oz overall for third in section and 15oz out of the section money!! All said and done I did actually enjoy the the match today, particularly fishing the waggler - albeit with some bad fish playing.


The match was won by the venue expert Tony Rixon (pictured right with a sweat on – not often seen, let photographed) from peg 39 with 75lb 3oz. Tony fished the pellet waggler (not many people know that Tony was the first to develop this method for Carp fishing) to the opposite island. Tony fed four pints of pellet.

The runner up was Vince Brown just half a fish behind with 72lb 7oz from Specimen peg 2.

As predicted all the Silvers weights came off the Specimen Lake with Martin Pettifer taking top place with 15lb 8oz of small Roach and Rudd fishing short and shallow (head down job) from Specimen peg 6.

Full Result:

1. Tony Rixon 75-04-0 peg 39
2. Vince Brown 72-07-0 peg Specimen 2
3. John Thompson 60-04-0 peg 11
4. Clint Wojtyla (spelt correctly I’m told) 60-0-0 peg 48
5. Martin (Natch) Rayet 55-04-0 peg Specimen 23
6. Nick Collier 52-10-0 peg 6

Top Silvers:

1. Martin Pettifer 15-08-0 peg Specimen 6
2. Paul Attwood 10-08-0 peg Specimen 5
3. Stuart Foale 6-04-0 peg Specimen 20

Top six League positions (in weight order):
1. Tony Rixon 14
2. Martin Rayet 13
3. Gary Etheridge 13
4. Dick Bull 13
5. Mike Nicholls 12
6. Alan Oram 12
7. Criag Edmonds 12
8. Bryan Shanks 12