Gary's day

After yet another very wet week it was Beggar's Hall today for us. The water was a lot more coloured than expected likely due to all the rain and the water being pumped in.

At the draw out came peg 18 for me. A great summer peg but not so great in the winter as you have a lot of water in front to try and find the fish in. The pole stayed in the car today and it was to be a day on the feeder and bomb with a waggler rod set up just in case.

A search around with a couple of bits of corn on the bomb to start with did not produce any signs. Darren on peg 21 and John on 19 got off to a good start with a carp each early on. Mark all the way up on peg 14 also looked to be getting a few bites too. 90 minutes in I finally had a bite on the feeder and a nice common was in the net. Had I found them? In short no.

Darren and John by this time had another each and then John quickly had a couple more. I was now at least 4 carp behind John. Fred then wandered down for a break from watching a motionless tip and mentioned that Rob had at least 5 carp too.

10 mins or so later I finally had another carp but just the 1 bite. Mark was still catching fish including on the pole and I could not see how Rob was doing. With 40 mins or so to go I finally had a bite where I had been feeding a bit of corn all day. The tip sailed round but nothing was on the end. A quick recast and the tip yanked round and carp 3 was in the net. The last 30 mins was like another match with 3 more carp in quick succession.

John thought he had about 30lbs and I reckoned I had that beat. Darren had had a pretty slow second half of the match. Fred had not wandered down or packed up so he must have caught too up on peg 16.

Having seen Mark catching pretty much on and off all day and knowing Rob had 5 fish early on it looked like it was a case of seeing if I could get 3rd. Rob was the clear winner today with 101lbs even after going over on one of his nets. It was then a lot closer than I expected with Mark's "40lbs" going 59lbs and my "35lbs" going 50lbs. Those carp are getting bigger and we also had a showing of a few bream for Rob and Darren. Picture today is birthday boy Fred at 85 years young.