Gary's day

Today was the first match for a while on MBL. It was a good turn out and we just about found enough relatively weed free pegs for us all. For me it was peg 2, a lovely platform but with a high bank that makes shipping the pole hard work. The shoulders were tired by the end of the day.

I decided on a couple of lines along the left hand lilies at about 8m and then 13m with another swim over in the open water. It was going to be maggots today to catch anything swimming with just loose feeding the shorter lines and a bit of groundbait long.

The first hour was a struggle for everyone with not a lot being caught. Changing to a much lighter rig finally found a few bites and I had a couple of small roach and a micro perch in the net. The next dip of the float met solid resistance before it shot off under the lilies and shed the hook. Tench 1 Gary 0.

After that it was even slower going with the odd roach on the 8m swim and just 1 small perch out in open water. Then the pike issues started with a pike of about 6lb taking an interest in every fish I hooked. It ended up taking 4 fish and was close to getting netted a couple of times before biting through the hooklength.

Elsewhere the odd silver fish was coming out and Kevin over on peg 8 was having some issues with carp gate crashing his tench line but had 1 tench landed. Mark over on peg 20 then netted a good tench after battling it through the weed.

Into the last hour things had really slowed down and getting any bites was hard work. You guessed it another tench came out of nowhere and after managing to get it out of the lilies it then went into the weed and chance 2 was gone. Into the last 30 mins and it was desperate but then I saw some bubbles over on the long line. Out went a beefier rig and the float went under and for all of about 2 seconds I was into a third decent fish only for the hook to pull as it slammed into the weeds. And that was it.

Phil next to me in peg 3 had had a difficult day too and Fred, Darren and Tony down our end of the lake had had a real grueller of a day. Going round with the scales showed how hard it had been with Mark's nice tench and some silvers taking him to 5lbs 1oz and 1st. Then Kevin's smaller tench pushed him to 3lbs 10oz and 2nd and then myself with 2lbs 6oz of bits. Photo today is Phil concentrating hard about mid-match.