Rob's day

Beggar's Hall today – bit cooler than late but warm and virtually no wind (rare for Beggar's). A couple of matches ago I did say that I never wanted to draw peg 21 again after losing so many fish, so not surprised when out of the bag came 21! Also one of the golden pegs although I wasn’t sure I could match a couple of the other pegs, notably peg 19 where Fred managed to draw again!

After the last time on peg 21 when a lot of fish ended up in the large lily bed, a had set up a heavier feeder outfit just in case so at least I could put that to use. In addition I also had a couple of margin pole rigs, one for paste, one for dead maggots/corn. Also a pellet waggler rod although very few carp cruising around at the start.

Started out in front on the feeder and after 20 minutes had a good pull round and an 8lb carp landed- followed by another smaller one and a crucian around 1 ½ pound. A quick go on the waggler produced nothing so back to the feeder. After a quiet spell tried down the left near the pads and had an instant bite – the gear held up and another good carp in the net. Next one hooked made it to the pads so first fish lost. The problem fishing close to the pads is that they are already in them when picking up the rod – something about these pads that makes the fish crazy!

About half-way now and a try on the pole – first maggots but too many small perch so onto corn and 5 minutes later a good carp in the net around 10lb. Onto paste and again an instant bite followed by a good fight – just managed to get the fish away from the pads and landed a good sized carp – looked bigger than the 16lb it weighed. Also another crucian around 2lb. At this time only one fish lost but that was about to change – next three came off . Managed two more on the tip before a quite last 30 minutes when I packed away the pole thinking the pegs to the right had done better – a lot of splashing from Bob on the next peg (20).

You can’t see a lot from peg 21 although I could see Peter's landing net come out a few times on peg 4. Weighed in the High Bank first – after Tony Cruci’s 33lb from peg 22 my fish went 72lb 13oz. Bob not as much as I thought next peg but still had 45lb and Fred had an even 50lb making up the top weights on the bank – Graham on 16 with a hard luck story, losing one that he reckoned to be over 20lb at the net near the end.

On the Low Bank – Jeff third with 34lb 6oz from peg 12 but two good weights and a close call for first and second – Peter's 77lb 10oz from peg 4 just beaten by Phil’s 82lb 5oz from peg 10 – a great weight from a peg that hasn’t been producing recently. So we all caught a few today – nice to see the top two weights coming from the Low Bank.