Gary's day

It was a trip to Little Walden's Home Farm today and its large lake. The car park was pretty full as the small lake also had a match on. With a day of rain but strong winds forecast I left the brolly at home which was a mistake.

I have not been on the large lake many times and I seem to keep drawing the same corner so today was going to be a change as we fished the other bank with the wind off our backs. Out of the bag came peg 13 near the island which I could just reach the overhanging branches of at 14.5 m.

The plan was to fish long to the island until the wind picked up and then shorter with either maggots or expanders. And a maggot feeder rod in case the wind really picked up.

The first hour was very slow for me but Rob to my right was catching on a maggot feeder from early on and Fred was also getting a few bites on the pole.

The island proved a waste of time and I finally picked up a small F1 on the feeder. A try on the micros and expander swim gave me a reasonable carp but I only had 1 more bite on that swim all day. Rob and Fred were still catching and so now was Darren on the pole. A couple of small F1s from near the island kept me from falling too far behind.

Whilst all this was happening the gentle sleat at the start had turned horrendous with 50p sized bunches of snowflakes falling. Shipping the pole was horrible as your hands got covered in freezing slush. When it finally turned to rain about 12.30 it was a welcome relief as the temperature increased a bit. The forecast strong winds did not happen though, I could have brought the brolly.

As the weather eased there was a quiet spell for us all and then my right hand maggot swim started to come good with a steady run of bites through to the end fishing a very light float. A few lost, foulhooked fish including one at the whistle was the downside of this though.

By the end of the day everyone had caught a few fish despite the weather. It looked like it was going to be between Rob and Darren although Fred had had a couple of decent carp. At the scales Darren's fish went 56lbs to Rob's 46lbs 15oz. I had thought Rob had more than that as he'd seemed to be catching all day and lifting my nets out I had more than I thought. It was close with my fish going 46lbs 6oz - I just needed some of the foulhooked fish to stay on. Sorry no weigh in shots this week just the start of the match and the next 3 hours of sleet / rain and the more sensible of us under a brolly.