Gary's day
And we're back - not the first match of the season but the first on the Club book.
It was a bright but not overly warm start as we gathered for the draw. Having just picked out flyer peg 2 for Dave I thought my luck was done for the day but peg 18 was OK as it had a bit of room.
Today's plan was to be quite simple: hard pellets at 5 sections; trying shallow further out; paste or corn in the margins; and a feeder if it went wrong. With Dave getting a carp on his first cast on peg 2 we all were thinking it was going to be a busy day. An hour in and just one bite and a small F1 on pellet - things were not going to plan. When I saw Phil S and Mark opposite start going for silvers it was clear it was a slow start for all.
After 1 more F1 on the shallow line after a lot of work it was time for the feeder, a rethink and a sandwich. There were encouraging signs straight away under the shallow line and I had a good run of a dozen or so small carp and F1s on the feeder. Mark and Phil S suddenly then started catching carp in the margins so it was decision time - keep ticking over with the feeder or hit the edges. With 3 hours to go I held with the feeder for a bit longer but started feeding the edges. 30 mins later it was time for the edges. It was a slower than usual start on paste but the fish started to show. It was a few small carp like on the feeder to start with but then they got a bit bigger. All the while Mark and Phil S seems to have a fish on every time I looked up and Phil W was starting to catch now - their fish looked bigger too. It looked like it was going to be close.
After that slow start there were some pretty good weights.
1st Gary Pickard 117lbs 11oz, 2nd Mark Halverson 84lbs 4oz and 3rd Phil Whitmill 67lbs 14oz. More importantly the match raised £50 for the BHF.