Gary's day

It was a very foggy start at Wickham Hall with the far side of the lake just about visible. With just a few of us out today we did a walk off / rover and I decided on a short walk and chose peg 20 as this seems to get a few people fishing it and I hoped that the fish are associating it with some food now. With a few more bream having just been stocked we were all looking for a few silvers in the net today.

As the pole does not seem to be working very well, despite plenty of water over their heads, I decided on 3 rods: a traditional cage feeder rod for out long; a method feeder; and, my secret weapon, an old Sigma Wand feeder/bomb rod with a very fine tip for trying to get a bite closer in. The first 3 hours were uneventful with only Phil admitting to possibly having had something nudge his bait. This was whilst the odd fish could be seen cruising on the top and Mark and Phil having seen a couple of carp swim by off their rod tips.

Finally, after 3 hours, my rod tip went round as one of the small but slightly crazy carp took a liking to my maggot hookbait. After carefully playing it in as I was fishing quite a light hooklength by this time I had something in the net. I quickly cast back out ready for the next fish but nothing. An hour later Phil had a bite and small carp and we were neck and neck. By this time I had pretty much exhausted my options with trying different hookbait combinations of maggot, worm and pinkie but could not get a bite. Tony then had a carp with 10 mins or so to go and it was going to be down to size of fish as they are all a pretty similar size in Wickham at the moment. Tony was first to weigh with 3lbs 1oz and then it was me - the scales flickered up to 3lbs 1oz but then settled back to 2lbs 13oz with Phil also weighing in 2lbs 13oz with his one carp. 20 man hours of fishing today for 3 bites - roll on Spring.

1st Tony Cruci 3lbs 1oz, Jt 2nd Phil Whitmill 2lbs 13oz and Jt 2nd Gary Pickard 2lbs 13oz. Picture is my peg 20 in a less foggy moment with Mark in the distance.