Gary's day

Today was back to Sawbridgeworth's lake for the annual Brandon Shield match with teams of 12 battling it out. The lake is rather interesting with a good head of silvers but they seldom get a look in with the carp bullying them out.

Out of the bag was peg 7 for me which was opposite the peg I had in last month's Triple Cup where I saw Darren having a nightmare with large carp charging off at high speed. The peg is a bit tucked away on a spit so, apart from my neighbours on the spit, I could only see a couple of other pegs.

It was going to be pretty much the same as last time: a long line with 4mms for anything; a shorter line with 6mms hoping for carp; and something in the margins which plumbed up a lot better than the other side of the bay.

There were some encouraging signs on the short pole line early on but foulhooking a big carp that charged off was not a great start. Thankfully there were still some around and I was off the mark with a nice carp landed. Again it was catch and release with each carp at 10lbs today.

The next couple of hours were then steady. After bumping a couple more decent fish they started to stay on the hook and I had a great run of half a dozen carp and a skimmer by a couple of hours in. The rest of the little bay was not fishing well and nor did it sound like the main lake was either although Mark on peg 6 was getting a few carp too.

The middle of the match went very odd with few bites and bumping fish. A replumb found the fish had dug out 6 inches of the bottom - that would explain the fizzing then. Sorting out the depth helped convert some bites. Mark was now starting to catch up and Steve on peg 8 was also starting to catch.

Into the last hour I was on 10 carp and Mark 8. A swap to the margins after seeing a boil was the turning point with the carp rocking up. It was pretty scary fishing with the margin carp being even larger and really pulling back hard and pushing the pole to its limits. At the whistle I had 14 carp and 2 bream with Mark getting stuck on 8. I ended up with the all important section win for the team and managed to pip team mate Rob to win the match.

The lake had fished a bit tougher today than on the Triple Cup with a lot fewer silvers showing - although the pike seemed to be feeding well with both Peter Green and Darren Cope bagging one each (sadly they did not count). With the weights being lower a few small silvers here and there were going to make a big difference. It ended up neck and neck with Bishop's Stortford winning with 76 points to Sawbridgeworth's 80. Photo today is Ray and Mark my neighbours on the spit.