Gary's day
It was Hall Farm's small lake for us this week with the weather finally getting colder but still not frosty - would the carp have a last feed up before winter? It was peg 8 again for me today with the rest of us spread around the lake. Peg 8 has been good to me but often does not come good until later where the deep margins tend to hold some F1s.
As expected it was a slow start out on the long pole lines with no signs on micros and expanders and just some small roach and rudd on maggots. Everyone else was in the same boat with just the odd silver coming out despite carp topping regularly.
An hour in Tony opposite hooked a carp which promptly fell off and then Rob on peg 1 managed to land one foulhooked in the fin. But that was the end of that flurry of activity. As the fish out long were still small and with the wind and low winter light making seeing the dotted down float hard I came shorter. The bites were horrible to see with some of the bigger roach only moving the float sideways rather than pulling it under. But at least a few fish were coming to the net.
Then Steve on peg 6 had a quick flurry around 1pm with 2 carp in the net and 3 lost. With Phil also getting a couple of good perch on peg 5. It was going to be a very close low weight match if the carp did not feed later with me needing a carp or F1 to get back in the mix. 2 hours later it was all over with not a carp in my net nor none hooked and nor did anyone else catch another. It sounded like the Big Lake also struggled. At the weigh in I had more than expected but needed that bonus fish.
It was a close result with so few carp showing. 1st Rob Calderon 10lbs 5oz, 2nd Steve Foster 9lbs 11oz and 3rd Gary Pickard 8lbs 10oz. Picture is the lake before the all in - flat calm and a lot colder than the photo makes it look.