Gary's day

Today was a trip to Malcolm Barker Lake and we were expecting it to be tricky. It can be tricky in the summer nevermind in the depths of winter.

Out of the bag came peg 20 in the middle of the riverside bank with no features in front. Not a peg I was hoping for. For company I had Rob on 19 and Darren on 21.

The plan was: a couple of long pole swims, one with groundbait and one just loose fed with pinkies; a bomb/feeder rod; and an emergency perch edge rig. I started out on a bomb with a bit of bread or meat for the first hour seeing if a rogue carp was willing to feed whilst the pole lines settled after feeding them.

An hour passed without a bite which was pretty much what I expected. What I was not expecting was that only 1 small roach had been caught an hour in. A try on the emergency perch line did not get a wobble. Being able to see the bottom 5 feet down probably did not help. Time for the long lines.

I decided to start on the negative line and completely missed the first bite as I could not believe the float went under. A quick rebait and the float went under again and a very welcome 1-2oz Rudd was in the net. I had 3 small rudd in quick succession before the swim went quiet.

Every now and again I had a couple of bites/fish after resting the swim. The rest of the lake was struggling and 2 hours in only Darren and me had caught anything. That was until Mark's feeder rod tip wrapped round and a good fish was on. Seeing the carp's tail sticking out of Mark's net as he landed it meant I was fishing for second unless I could find something better than 2oz rudd.

The positive long pole line was a waste of time but the pinkie line kept giving me the odd small rudd and occasional roach. It was hard work as all the bites were pretty much as the float settled so there was a lot of relaying the rig in. The rest of lake was still fishing very badly. John managed a couple of small fish near the end and Darren added one more but that was it. For no reason a few small fish had ended up in front of me and I ended with 40+ small fish. A busy day and more bites than I have had on MBL for a long time. 5 of us though went biteless, MBL is a tough venue at times.

It was pretty obvious who was today's winner but Mark was not expecting the carp to be quite that big - it topped the scales at 19lbs 2oz. My busy day got me second with 3lbs and then it was a close one for 3rd with John 's 3 fish going 3oz to Darren's 2 for 2oz - and that was it. Today's photo is Mark with his MBL lump of a carp.