Rob's day

At Hall Farm today on a cooler day with a fresh breeze blowing into the car park end. With just 10 on the match today and levels even lower I decided to just use the low bank – pegs 3-12 with a half time weigh in.
I drew peg 4 – have not been there for a while so reasonably happy although Bill to the left had end peg and the fish in the shallow water around pegs 1 and 2 to draw from so would be difficult to beat today.

Just set up a feeder, pole rigs for shallow and at 9 meters in around 4 ½ foot, and some margin rigs. Started shallow at 13 meters but the wind proved difficult so onto the shorter line. After a couple of small carp no further bites – a quick go on the feeder proved fruitless so just the 2 fish at the half way mark. Bill had been catching a few – mainly on the tip and weighed in 18lb to my 6lb. Further along Jeff had landed a decent carp near the whistle (in fact air horn, thanks Graham for donating this) and Fred had a good morning – 21lb 6oz on the tip. Apart from that just one or two fish caught so all to play for in the second half, would be down to who caught most in the margins late on as has been the case on most of the recent matches here.

Into the second half – a look on the short line nothing so down the margins where one or two fish had been showing, but not many. No problem for Bill who had a quick 2 or 3 short and was now catching good sized carp in the margins. Eventually had a couple on maggots down the edge but didn’t seem many fish coming in – had a good run of another 2 or 3 with an hour to go then nothing, no bites in the last 45 minutes.

At the weigh in Bill had continued to catch (for the second match running I’ve watched my neighbour continually catch while I’ve struggled to get a bite!) and weighed in a good 91lbs 13oz for a comfortable win. Fred ran him reasonably close with 68lbs 7oz from peg 7 for second, Phil having a good second half after a fishless first with 43lbs 1oz for third and Graham coming fourth with 36lbs 8oz

So most catching a few today – fishing pretty well despite the low water conditions, most fish caught in the margins. Does seem that a lot of the fish are increasing in size, some good sized fish around 7-8lb caught today. Hopefully as we move into Autumn the levels will come up at some point so we can safely fish the high bank swims again.