Gary's day

It was Hall Farm today for us – still very low but with a forecast of heavy doses of rain for the day. And yes I had left my brolly at home. Out of the draw bag came peg 7 for me – sort of in the middle in terms of lake and how it usually performs. And I had left my deeper water rigs at home which needed some adding of line to the heaviest rig I could find in the box. Darren had drawn today's flyer in peg 3 with the shallower end of the lake having been dominating matches recently - no pressure. For company I had Tony to my left on peg 6 and Fred to my right on peg 8.

Even with the water being down it soon drops off into the deeps here so it was going to be: one line at about 6 metres with hard pellet in about 7 feet; another out at 13 metres where they would hopefully come shallow again om pellets as they had about 10 feet of water below them; and something for the edges which started shallow but then dropped away quickly.

A start at 6 metres produced a couple of small carp then, as his line often does, it fizzled to nothing. I seemed to be doing OK though with only Darren catching. A try out long produced an instant couple of small carp shallow but that was it. The bottom though was fizzing quite a lot where I was feeding long. An hour or so in I had 4 small carp and had not broken into double figures yet – they were nice looking fish but I needed their bigger parents. About this time Tony and Fred also got off the mark. Everyone else was a mystery as there are just enough bushed along the bank to stop you seeing anyone.

A quick carp fishing on the bottom out long on the pole as I tried to find out what was causing the fizzing looked encouraging but that was it – just the one bite on the pole. A go on a small method feeder on the fizzing produced a couple more small carp but I was going nowhere fast. We then had the first of what was going to be a few very heavy downpours.

Tony had clearly thought it was time to make something happen and what sounded like the best part of a tin of sweetcorn went in down his margins whilst I was back on the 6m line. It worked though and he was soon into another decent looking carp worth 3 of mine. Fred was also now starting to get a few fish dropping a feeder in quite short.

It was all going to be down to my margins as the 6m line was steady but too slow. The margin slope was horrible so I ended up fishing a bit away from the bank to try and find a flattish area with hard pellets to pin the bait in place. Slowly the margins started revving up and I had a nice finish – the fish were not much bigger apart from one which was to be crucial with both Fred and me shouting "fish on" at the whistle.

With Tony and Fred having a good finish, and Tony's fish looking a better stamp than the ones I was catching it was going to be close for second and that was without knowing what others had been catching. Darren looked to have been catching well all day so first place looked sown up. As expected, Darren finished well ahead with 113lbs making no mistakes on peg 3 and then it was very close for second with my 68lbs just beating Fred who just beat Kevin and the rest wree not far behind too. Photo today is the lake before the off whilst it was still dry.