Gary's day

It was going to be hot with little wind at Beggar's Hall so ideal conditions for a pellet waggler - one of my favourite methods. Out of the draw bag came peg 5 which I was pretty happy with as it has a bit of room. The only drawback is that you also get an excellent view of flyer pegs 17 and 18 - Jeff and Phil respectively today. Not what you want if your day is a bit slow.

Today's match for me was going to be simple: a longish line as far as 8mm pellets grouped nicely to fish with PW, bomb and pellet and a hybrid feeder; and then down the edge with either paste or corn on the pole. Jeff got off to a flying start with a carp in the first few minutes - the rest of us had to wait a while. The first 30 mins was frustrating - lots of carp cruising around but moving quickly and showing no interest in the loose fed pellets. A quick go on the bomb finally found me a carp and I was off the mark. Swapping around between PW, bomb and feeder kept the odd bite coming and the weight was ticking up quite quickly. At about the half way point I heard Jeff and Mark say they had about 3 carp and I could see Phil getting the odd fish although losing a few too. At this stage I was a bit ahead but with the long line slowing down and Phil getting more bites/fish that lead could quickly disappear. There was also a lot of splashing coming from Fred's swim (peg 4) so he sounded like he was getting a few too.

It was time to try the margin - a bit of a wait and then losing the first fish was not the start I was looking for. So it was back out long to give the fish a little more time to get comfortable down the edge. With 2 hours to go it was time to try the edge again and, once I had worked out the carp wanted a few micros with the feed, I had a steady run of decent carp all the way to the end. With Phil just having the 2 nets in I knew I had him beat but had no idea what Mark had out of view on peg 16. At the weigh in it was a new Beggar's Hall PB match weight for me. It was not just carp feeding though today as a few bream and tench also put in an appearance around the lake.

1st Gary Pickard 145lbs 8oz, 2nd Fred Hunt 68lbs 10oz and 3rd Mark Halverson 66lbs 2oz. Today's picture is me with some of the great carp that kept me busy.