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British Carp Angling Championships - Qualifier
Armed with lots of bait, courtesy of our sponsors Angling Direct, we were set and armed for whatever the lake could throw at us. Sometimes the venue requires lots of heavy baiting and other times it is single baits with little PVA bags, but with this style of fishing you have to be prepared for every eventuality.
We arrived at the venue on the Thursday so we could walk the lake and work out our peg choice, on arrival we were greeted with warm temperatures, clear skies and bright sunshine, which made the fish spotting easy. We soon found the Carp shoaled up in an area that we had already fancied before we'd even seen the lake - In the lead up to each of our matches, we spend a lot of time researching the venue and speaking with as many contacts as possible, trying to gain any little bit of info we can, seeing if we can gain the upper hand on our competitors.
So with our peg choices written down it was now down to the draw - would the Carp gods be shinning on us?
Luckily they were, on the draw we managed to come out second, securing our first choice swim! Now it was just down to us to make it happen.
With the draw finished it was time to head to our swim and after a few trips with the barrow moving what seemed like a ton of tackle we were eventually set up and ready to go. The signs were good, the carp were crashing out all over us!
Keeping disturbance to a low the first hooter of the day sounded at 11.00am, this meant we could marker up and introduce some bait into the swim, but couldn't introduce a baited rig until midday. With everything ready to rock we sat back and waited for the start.
As soon as the second hooter blasted out we introduced our baited rigs, a simple flick was all that was needed. Minutes after the last rod was in the rest the first rod burst into life, a few minutes later and the first fish of our competition was in the sack. 40 minutes later and we had four fish in sacks waiting to be weighed. To say we'd got off to a flyer would have been an understatement!
Unfortunately for the next few hours it went quiet, the early disturbance had obviously pushed the fish away, as they were now showing over 100 yards in front of us. We soon swapped rigs and blasted some baits to the horizon and before we knew it we were back into the fish. We were currently in third spot, battling hard with forth who's fish and bites had started to dry up, luckily for us we managed to carry on catching and by Saturday morning we'd managed to build a bit of a cushion.
Saturday afternoon came and so did the fish, we weren't exactly hauling but a steady stream kept us busy and kept our weight total on the up. By Saturday night we were confident we'd probably done enough to qualify, however Sunday morning this confidence ebbed away as news broke that the team in forth had landed over 200lb of fish, bringing them to within 5lb of us!
The last few hours of the match were extremely nervy, but luckily we managed a few more carp and a few more vital pounds to secure our third place finish, qualifying for the next round. In the end we ended up with 396lb, 30lbs ahead of our nearest pursuer.
We'd fished against some great anglers and it was a pleasure to see Kevin Grout and Luke Church do battle against Billy Flowers and Jamie Londers, who finished in the top two with two huge weights of fish, fishing next door to each other. A massive well done to both teams who never gave up.
It's on to Brasenose 1 for the semi-final now and we are once again hoping that the carping gods are shining on us, it's going to be a tough one fishing against some incredibly talented anglers, but we're looking forward to it.
Until next time, tight lines.
Paul & Stephen
