Angling Times Supercup Final.

Supercup Final


Our semi final was fished 2 weeks before the final so we had very little time to practice compared to the other regional teams. I fished one practice open match were I drew peg 5 on Canal pool. I have fished this peg twice before, once in an open before a Maver pairs match and in a club match. The peg has rushes down the sides and a small clump of rushes on the far bank. My plan was to fish meat and pellet both across and down the edge. After a very busy days fishing I managed 89lb of F1's and carp. This is my best weight in a match and I had a feeling I might have caught my first ton, but it was not to be. That result gave me a section win by default.
Again the captains could place anglers on each pool, and again I decided that I did not mind were I fished. I really like Tunnel Barn the fishing is very good and I felt comfortable with what to do. I was placed on Jennys pool, and was a little bit miffed not to be on Canal pool after the last match, but never mind. It was good just to be in the final. After the practice matches and talking to the local anglers it became obvious that the pegs that fished well had plenty of cover for the fish to sit. The less cover you had meant that you caught well at the start but the fish would back off after a while. As it turned out my peg did not have a great deal of cover across, and other pegs looked a lot better. I fished a line across with meat and groundbait as well as at the bottom of the near shelf and against the near side rushes. I also set up a shallow rig for banded pellet down the middle, but this is not a method I am confident with. The match started ok with small carp and F1's being caught fairly regularly. After a while I could not help bu notice that anglers further up the bank were catching a lot quicker than me, but I seemed to be doing ok against the anglers close to me. I needed to change something so I started to feed against the next peg platform to my left at about 11.5 metres. The idea being to plumb in front of the platform and look for the deeper depression caused by the keepnets. Once this was sorted I started to kinder pot in some meat and groundbait and managed to start catching carp and F1's again on 6mm cubes of meat. However once again I knew I was not catching quickly enough. In the end I think I weighed 54lb which only beat 2 others in the section I think. On the lake there were several weights over 100lb and the overall the fishery can only be described as awesome.
It was a bad day all round for the team and we finished dead last. We collected our medals and bait box of goodies from the sponsers, had a beer and a laugh about it. I personally don't think we had a good draw, my peg and several others could have been better. We also suffered from lack of practice and from not being used to that sort of fishing. When its good it really is head down bagging, you have to be quick but not rushed if that makes sense.
Anyway a big thank you to the team of Jeff, Martin, Rick, Arthur and Jake. We had a good laugh and enjoyed everything along the way. Thanks also to Warrington AA for help with peg fees and petrol money, Angling Times and the fisheries involved.
It was great just getting to the semi final so the final was just a big bonus. We put no pressure on ourselves and made sure we would enjoy it, which we did. Will we be as lucky next year, who knows.