Gary's day

It was a cold start but thankfully not freezing. Today's peg for me was number 4, middling in many ways and not where I fancied. There was the odd fishing topping when we set up which was encouraging.

With it being a shallower peg, I decided to fish long on the pole and feeder ignoring the margins. I also set up a waggler, not something I usually do at Hall Farm, but the conditions were perfect.

A start on the feeder did not produce anything so time to try the waggler line which I had been firing a few maggots over. A quick bite, which I completely missed, was encouraging as the lake seemed to be fishing hard. A few minutes later I had a small F1 in the net and the blank was avoided. 1 more F1 but no more so time to try something else and out went a maggot feeder. A wrap around bite with nothing to show and then another fish falling off after a few seconds was not a great start but it did get me a rare skimmer. Time for the pole. The bites were slow in coming but came just often enough to make it worth staying on especially when one was a bonus carp of about 9lb. Along the bank I could hear the odd splash and see the ripples to show others were catching too.

Disaster struck though with a bit over an hour to go with a sickening crunch letting me know all was not well with my number 8 section. A couple more small F1s on the feeder was me for the last hour. Whilst waiting for the tip to go round I could see Peter on peg 2 catching up with a late run of fish.

At the weigh in it was going to be close. Thankfully I had done enough pre-pole disaster.

1st Gary Pickard 36lbs 1oz, 2nd Peter Green 27lbs 5oz and 3rd Tony Cruci 27lbs 4oz.

Today's photo is proof there are still a few bream in Hall Farm.