Gary's day

It was Beggar's Hall today for us after another dry week and the water was still very low. With 11 on the match a good draw was needed and I was quite happy with peg 5 once all the flyers had been drawn.

I set up a bomb / feeder rod, a couple of rigs for the pole long for pellets and meat and a rig for the margin. After putting a little bait on the long lines I tried the feeder whilst they settled. A big liner after a few minutes looked promising but no bites developed. A try then on the long pole was similarly quiet with just a couple of small indications from small fish.

Fred on peg 18 and Darren on 4 were starting to get a few bites and so was Mark on peg 17. An hour in I was a carp down. At last I had a bite on the bomb and pellet and a very lively 2-3lb tench was in the net. I was slowly falling behind and needed carp. A huge liner on the feeder had the rod bent round double but nothing on the end when I picked up. That was my last sign on the bomb / feeder.

Fred and Darren were slowing down but Mark and Kevin on peg 21 were still getting regular fish. Finally I had a bite over my meat line only for the hook to pull on a good fish at the net. And then it happened again 20 mins later this time on a couple of dead maggots. I was not very happy at this point.

Finally I managed to get a decent carp in the net after about 3 hours and things were looking better. After that carp I could not get past the small perch with a maggot on the hook and even they disappeared in the last couple of hours. 2 foulhooked and lost carp were my lot in the last couple of hours with the margins not producing.

After a very frustrating day for me it looked like it was going to be between Mark and Kevin. I had seen Mark catching steadily but had not seen how many Kevin had caught. At the scales Kevin took 1st place with 101lb with Mark having 83lbs for 2nd, and then it was Fred with 43lbs and Jeff 4th with 38lbs incouding a couple of bream. Photo today is Mark with a mirror that was just under 20lbs.