Gary's day

After a wet couple of weeks the mild weather continues but it was dry at long last. Today was the Brandon Shield with us fishing against Sawbridgeworth at Hall Farm. The Sawbo team looked to be under strict instructions to get there early as a few were queueing up when Tony arrived to open the gate. The B/S team were not so early.

At the draw Tony pulled out the odd pegs for us and then it was peg 19 for me. It has been a while since I fished this bit of the lake and I had forgotten how deep it gets. Thankfully we were on a 10 start so I had time find some more suitable rigs after I completely misguessed the depth by a couple of feet.

With the weather being all over the place at the moment a careful start was called for until I could work out if the fish actually wanted to feed. I still haven't quite worked that one out even after the match! It was a very odd day with fish topping all day down the middle of the lake and in any pegs that had noone on them - they knew where the gaps were - but they never seemed to actually get their heads down to feed despite all the activity. Typical moody F1 behaviour. I did though have plenty of bites but mostly from silvers. Just when I thought I had managed to feed off the smaller stuff a new wave of them appeared. Amongst these I did manage a few F1 and carp but it was never going to be enough to compete with pegs 1, 2 and 3 on the other bank who all had a steady day which I had a great view of . At the all out I had more than I thought with 15lbs 10oz but needed double that to make the frame.

Stortford managed to retain the Brandon Shield with 144lbs 15oz to Sawbridgeworth's 72lbs 5oz

Individually it was 1st David Jones 37lbs 1oz, 2nd Colin Hawkins 33lbs 14oz, 3rd Jeff Pearson 27lbs 14oz and 4th Mark Halverson 21lbs 9oz.