Gary's day

It was Hall Farm's large lake today after a very wet week and a couple of cold nights. Not expecting a great day I had brought maggots just to get some bites. At the draw a few fish were topping so I might have been a little pessimistic.

Out of the draw bag came peg 2; a consistently good peg so the pressure was on. With seeing a cloud of small rudd and roach near the weed bed in the middle the maggots stayed in the bag. It was going to be: 4mms long in case they came shallow (although in 3 1/2 feet of water a long shot); hard pellets on a top 6 to the left in case they wanted to feed; and micros and expanders at 6 sections to the right if it was tricky. The margins were for a lot later.

I had a steady start with a couple of smaller carp in the first 30 mins on hard pellet before trying the expander swim. A try then on the expander swim got me a couple of roach / rudd and then a carp. Bouncing between the 2 swims kept the fish coming and I had 30+lb coming up to 2 hours in. The rest of the lake was slower with Rob on peg 10 getting a few smaller carp and Phil the odd bigger fish on peg 4. A try shallow had me hook one fish that fell off at the net so it was back to the 2 pellet swims.

With a couple of hours to go it was time for the margins as Phil was getting a few bites down there. This is where the wheels fell off a bit. There were fish to the left but I just could not get a clean bite. Even 2 big grains of corn were being wafted all over the place. Dropping a method feeder in the margins got a couple of fish but way too many were coming off even on the feeder. Phil was still hooking fish but also having a nightmare with keeping them on but looked to be having a very strong finish. Rob was also an unknown after his good start. I thought I had done enough but you can never tell with carp fishing as weights can add up very quickly in the last hour.

1st Gary Pickard 121lbs 10oz, 2nd Rob Calderon 67lbs 10oz and 3rd Phil Whitmill 50lbs. Picture today is Phil with a net of chunky carp - apparently the ones that came off were even bigger.