Phil's day

Hi to all and a very merry Christmas. We had our last club match of the year at Hall Farm club lake. It was a bitterly cold day (-2c to start) but we had a good turn out. We started our day with mince pies and sausage rolls and a couple of tipples of home made sloe gin - I would like to thank Peter and Jean Green and Marion and Tel for their rolls and David Jones for the lovely home made mince pies.

The draw took place half hour later than usual and I drew peg 18. Can't say whether it was good or not because, on a day like this, it was going to be very hard anywhere. I made up 1 pole line with not much confidence and the feeder with light tackle and this was going to be my best hope. I tried the pole but soon gave up with that and onto the feeder - size 18 hook and 4lb hooklength with a single red maggot and a very small maggot feeder. After about a hour or so on the feeder I had a drop back and I didn't wait for a second pull and struck at it for my first carp about 4lb. Had a second about an hour later of 2lb then a third with a hour to go. With half an hour to go had a 4th one on but it slipped the hook - my words were blast or something like that. I ended up with 9lbs 9oz for 3rd place

1st Jeff Pearson with 12lbs 12oz, 2nd Terry Moranda with 12lbs 11oz, 3rd Phil Whitmill with 9lbs 9oz , 4th Steve Foster with 3oz and 5th and just out of the frame was Fred Hunt with 2oz the rest of the field blanked. Photo today is Jeff skylining Gary's peg before the off [And that is my excuse for the DNW - merry Xmas all and have a great New Year - Gary].