Gary's day

With a few of the regulars otherwise engaged with Easter egg hunts we decided to head to Hall Farm. It was a chilly start but slowly warmed up through the day.

With a couple of people on the lake already we decided to go for a walk off and I decided to have a go on peg 24 as 26 (Rob) and 12 (Phil) had already been taken. The plan was the pole long with either hard pellets or expanders and then closer in with luncheon meat. The margins were only a couple of feet deep so seemed a bit shallow for this time of year.

I had a steady start on pellets on the long pole in about 7ft of water. Not many bites but each a carp of a couple of pounds or so and the weight was slowly ticking up. Rob was also having a good start on the feeder chucking to the reeds and seemed to be inching ahead.

By the mid point I had about 12 carp but the long line was fading. A quick try shallow for the odd cruising carp did not work so time to give the short lines another go. This time the float wobbled and then shot under and another carp was heading to the net. Jeff on 22 was also starting to catch but Phil on 12 was very quiet and I could not see Fred on 13.

The second half of the match was steady with carp heading to the net regularly. Rob was also still catching but losing a few in the reeds. The last 30 mins was a nightmare as everything I hooked came off and it looked like I was falling behind Rob.

It looked like it was going to be between me and Rob, although the other end of the lake does seem to have some pretty big resident fish. Despite the horrible last 30 mins I had done enough edging out Rob's late flurry of fish. 1st Gary Pickard 89lbs 4oz, 2nd Rob Calderon 77lbs 15 oz and 3rd Fred Hunt 36lbs. And no blanks or DNWs today after a long winter and cold spring. It was not as sunny as the photo of Rob makes it look like.