Gary' day

Today was the Club's Christmas match at Home Farm's small lake. It was another mild day but with a brisk, cold wind.

Out of the bag was peg 1 for me, a little out of the wind and with it sort of off my back for a change to being in my face. I started out as long as I thought I could hold if the wind picked up at 7 sections. There were some encouraging bites from the off but only small roach even on expanders. A try in a few places around the peg found more roach but no carp. After about an hour Rob on peg 3 hooked a carp so, hopefully, they were feeding now. It was time to risk the far bank with the pole at 14.5m, thankfully the wind was manageable. After a few roach I struck into something that was not a roach. After it finished tearing around the peg, a clear foul hooker, it finally came off way too close to the net. But I did get a free float that came back with my rig! I then had a quick flurry of 3 carp before they sulked off.

The next 2 hours was a case of scraping together some more roach with Rob putting the odd carp in the net.
The far end of the lake was also improving with Mark and Jeff tangling with a few carp . Finally, with 30 minutes to go, I found some more carp as close to the far bank tree as I dared to go. The first went charging under the tree and came off. The second was better behaved. I don't think it knew it was hooked and, after a few tense minutes on a 2.6lb bottom, a good double was in the net. That was it for the big fish.

In a ridiculously close finish 1st Mark Halverson 27lbs 10oz, 2nd Gary Pickard 27lbs 6oz and 3rd Rob Calderon 27lbs 1oz.

Picture today is John with a grass carp that decided to put in an appearance - you don't see many of them around here.