Gary's day

Today was a new venue for me as we were at Home Farm's large lake, we tend to fish the small one. So peg 7 meant nothing at all to me when it came out of the draw bag. On arriving at the peg I had a long straight bank of tins with a bramble in the water on a top kit, a small tree to the left and the corner much too far to the right for the pole as it was going to be breezy.

On plumbing up it was pretty much 2 1/2 feet everywhere out front and 2 foot down the sides. Time to find some shallow rigs in the box! With a few fish cruising I started trying shallow but only had roach and rudd. Next up was paste at 5 sections to one side where the light was good to see the float. Again the roach and rudd were a pain so time for hard pellets. This seemed to fix things a bit and slowly a few carp were heading to the net but only small ones of around a pound. Over on peg 5 Mark was flying with fish regularly heading to his net and looking twice the size of mine. Time for a change as I needed to catch bigger fish.

Thankfully the fish down the edge were a better stamp but I really had to wait for a positive bite to avoid foul hooking fish - and it is amazing the number of bites I had just to come back with a stick! Over on my left Phil had a blinding finish and it was going to be close for second place - Mark was well in front.

At the all out 1st was Mark Halverson with 168lbs 2oz, 2nd Gary Pickard with 129lbs 11oz and 3rd Phil Whitmill 128lbs 8oz. Phil wins the 2 leg Stone Cup on weight with 205lbs 9oz to Gary's 199lbs 6oz after a points tie. Today's picture is Mark - you might just see the tail of a very orange koi in the top right of the weigh bag.