Gary's day

Today was a trip to Beggars Hall with autumn well and truly with us: a colder start and very wet finish to the day.

Out of the bag came peg 18 which I was very happy with as it has been doing well in the last few matches. The plan was to fish further out on the pole with hard pellets, a feeder for if the wind picked up too much and then down the edges.

As the water was well down I ended up putting the box down below the platform so I was not going to see anyone else today down there.

It was a steady start with the odd bite on hard pellet and an hour so in I had 3 carp in the net. Despite a bit of fizzing over my feed getting a bite took lots of tweaking of how I laid my rig in or changing the size / colour pellet on the band. A couple of quick tries on the feeder whilst I rested the pole line had indications but only 1 bite.

I could hear the odd splash to my left so either a few carp were being caught or the ducks were going nuts. To my right it seemed pretty quiet.

With a couple of hours to go it was time to try the margins. The left hand side near the reeds was a bit of a bust with 1 bite and a huge lump of a carp lost at the net when the hook pulled. The right though seemed to have fish there but I needed to fish long to get past some weed along the edges. By the end the bites were coming thick and fast - just as the rain rolled in. Kevin to my left also sounded like he was catching well too. Elsewhere Darren on peg 17 was having a nightmare with fish coming off.

The middle pegs seems to fish better on the day with lots of tales of carp lost. 1st Gary Pickard 125lbs, 2nd Kevin Turner 99lbs and 3rd Fred Hunt 58lbs. Picture today is my peg before the off - sorry nothing from the end as it was lashing down.