Gary's day

Today was the club Xmas match at Home Farm's small lake and it was back to winter with a healthy dose of fog after a very mild week. It was peg 9 for me today and, after a bit of initial confusion working out which peg was which as there are no numbers on the lake swims, I was pleased to see I was in the middle. After the last few outings with very few bites I made a careful start almost counting the micros into the pole pot not wanting to blow the peg before I got started. A couple of small roach on long pole and expander to start with saved the blank and then with a carp early on - if only a small one - today was looking good. Sadly there was no sudden rush of fish for me and it was a question of rotating lines to pick up a few roach with the occasional better fish and then a very rare carp.

On the other side of the lake it was slowly developing into a 2 horse race between Steve and Jeff. Jeff declared at the start he was giving at an hour and then going home but was then strangely quiet as the match progressed - a sure sign he was bagging. It went down to the wire between Steve and Jeff. Tony opposite had a cracking carp over 10lb at the midway point and the lake then slowly started to come a bit more to life with a few carp deciding to feed near the end. To my left David was very quietly putting a few fish in the net. I ended up with just under 13lbs with a carp lost at the net in the dying minutes proving costly in my battle with David but I had a good day out with plenty of bites - even if the wrong size fish.

Many thanks to Tony for arranging the match and also a thank you to the Home Farm owners - the mid-morning hot mince pies and sausage rolls were a great morale booster as the cold started to bite.

Today's results 1st Steve Foster 25lbs 12oz, 2nd Jeff Pearson 21lbs 10oz, 3rd David Jones 17lbs 15oz and 4th Gary Pickard 12lbs 14oz.

Today's picture shows us ready to chance our luck in the draw bag.