Gary's day

Today was Hall Farm's Large Lake after a cold night and a wet week. With the clocks going back we had an extra hour in bed though. Today was peg 4 for me in the middle of the low bank, a peg I would have preferred a month back.

With plenty of people on the lake today the plan was to fish as long as possible into the quieter middle water. I gambled on 13m and hoped the wind would not get up too much more. One side I put in some maggot and groundbait and the other was for micros and expanders.

It was a slow start with no signs at all on expanders. As Mark opposite was starting to catch a few silvers on maggots and with no carp or F1s showing it was time to get something in the net. A try on the maggot swim had a bite straight away: gudgeon. Then another gudgeon. Finally a few decent roach and rudd started to show. A quick try on the feeder to have a rest from battling the wind did not get anything.

I could not see most of my bank but the far side looked tricky despite being sheltered from the worst of the wind. Bob on 26 and then Kevin on 24 started to get a few fish and then so did Fred. My silvers with a couple of rogue skimmers were quickly wiped out.

With the wind not dropping I tried a shorter line. After a few silvers the float went under and carp was on the hook and then it was off. Back to the silvers and finally another decent fish was on and this time a carp was in the carp net. Not a huge fish but worth a lot of silvers.

Kevin was still catching a few fish on the long pole and so was Fred pretty much fishing completely differently with dropping a feeder in short. Bob had another couple and so did I but I thought I was way behind.

It turned out to be a lot closer than I was expecting with lost fish making all the difference today. High Bank 1st Fred Hunt 24lbs 2oz and 2nd Kevin Turner 17lbs 14oz. Low Bank 1st Darren Cope 20lbs 8oz and 2nd Gary Pickard 18lbs 5oz. Picture today is Mark left and Fred right over on the far bank at the start.