Gary's day

It was a sunny and hot day for us at Beggars Hall which meant that, by the end of the day, pretty much every peg was being fished.

Out of the bag came 17 for me, not quite 18 but I was very happy with this. I was not so happy when the top section of my bomb rod broke whilst I was setting up.

With the weather being warm it was a start on pellet waggler. Sadly there were no signs, although Peter had better luck on it. I had flicked a few pellets down the edges and, an hour in, the left edge started colouring up. A quick try had signs straight away and then a chunky mirror heading to the net. 2 lost fish later it was time for a rethink - they were coming in but not feeding confidently so causing foulhooking. A go on a small method feeder had 2 more in the net but it was slow going. A try to the right on pellet and corn had 2 more big mirrors in the net but that was it, it never came back to life.

So it was the left edge or bust. Messing around with the feeding and where I was fishing kept the bites coming. Upping the elastic to the strongest I had, 15-17, helped control the fish but they were all not very happy about being hooked. I had a great day ending with plenty of doubles pushing my final weight to 144lbs.

Given my day I was surprised the rest of the lake had not fished that well on paper although there were plenty of fish lost which is par for the course at Beggars.

1st Gary Pickard 144lbs 11oz, 2nd Peter Green 54lbs 14oz and 3rd Mark Halverson 44lbs 3oz.

Winner of the Ralph Jarvis cup was Mark Halverson. Pic today is the left margin that kept me busy.