Gary's day

We had a late change of venue from Home Farm due to low water levels there so it was a repack of the kit the night before. Autumn is here and there was a colder edge to the wind at the draw but thankfully the rain held off.

It was my lucky day and peg 18 came out of the draw bag - finally it was my turn to give this peg a go. Even I will admit this is a bit of flyer and I nearly ran to the peg. With flyers though come expectations so I knew I would never live down a poor result from here. With the colder week it was going to be an odd day: the carp either having gone very moody or decided to start packing on the weight for winter. In the end it was a bit of both.

It was a slow start out in the middle with a few liners to encourage but not many turning into bites. By the half way point I had 5 carp in the net plus a couple lost, so doing OK but then I saw John and Peter opposite get a good fish each in quick succession. I had also heard Fred's subtle tones from the other end of the lake saying that Mark had a couple. Time for change as the bomb/feeder lines had faded. Maybe they had come shallow? The answer was no - 20 mins or so on the pellet waggler did not get me a sign.

Time to try an early look down the edges. I started to the left and nothing. OK, not what I expected. Time for the right. And this time I had found a few. That was it for the rest of the day - odd fish from the right and wasting a bit of time trying the left whilst the right got a rest. I was glad that I tied up a couple of stronger rigs the night before with the change of venue as I had a few lumps that tested tackle and me - at times I was just holding on to the pole as the carp charged off towards the island.

At the all out it was a day of 4s - 104lbs 4oz and a broken number 4 section as I managed to knock it whilst playing a big carp - still not sure how it broke. And my first 100lb match weight. Pic today is one of the bruisers that helped tick up the weight.

1st Gary Pickard 104lbs 4oz, 2nd Mark Halverson 34lbs 4oz, 3rd Fred Hunt 26lbs 14oz and 4th Peter Green 23lbs 4oz.

Mark takes the Stone Cup with 5 points just edging past Phil who ended with 6.