I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the first Fish O Mania qualifier at Tunnel Barn Farm. Once again the weather had stayed cold and there was some snow in the couple of days leading up to the match. So with the addition of cold water and a North wind the fishing was expected to be difficult.
On a match like this I would be very surprised if I had any chance of winning, so I was hoping to draw a peg good enough to get a few fish and have a decent day. I did not want to travel that distance and catch very little. I suppose that's a little bit negative for such a big match but I have to be realistic. For someone like me to win would need to draw an absolute flyer with fish jumping in the keep net and the stars to all draw bad pegs. Not very likely to happen in a one off match like this.
Anyway back to the match. I arrived in plenty of time, so registered and had a look round. Being parked in a wet field I wanted to draw as early as possible in case there were any problems getting out of the field so got positioned in the tackle shop and waited. When my turn came I pulled out High Pool peg 25. Must admit I did not have a clue and got no good or bad reaction from the organizers so went away wondering what might happen. Thankfully I got out of the field with no problems and drove round the the peg. It was situated on a narrow bank with pegs either side. There was a rush Island roughly 13-14 metres on the far bank to target as well as rush lined margins. The pegs are a bit tight on this pool. Next empty peg was 6 pole sections away.
Luckily the wind was behind me so I should be able to present my rigs without too much trouble. Due to the weather I had decided to fish it in a similar way to Partridge. One thing that I do like at Tunnel is when you plumb up the depth in certain areas it stays pretty constant in that the once past the near shelf the depth is pretty much the same all the way until the far shelf. However I must say the the depth in the deep water was close to 7ft and nearly as long as my topkits. The near and far margins were again pretty much the same at just over 3ft. So I had a rig for top 4 close in for pellet, maggot rig for 6 sections in the middle slightly to the left, a 3ft rig for maggot/pellet for the near and far bank and a bread dobbing rig for along the far bank rushes. I had been told that this pool was one of the newer ones so the fish were smaller than on the older lakes. You would need to catch a lot of fish in order to compete with the other lakes. To be honest unless the fish were really having it I doubt the winner would could from this lake, there might be a chance once the weather is warmer.
The match started and I began on pellet at top 4. I caught an early F1 but otherwise very quiet. I moved across to 13 metres and caught a nice steady run of F1's on pellet or maggot. There were some small roach and perch mixed in so after a while I changed to bread. Again some more F1's followed but nothing to get carried away with. I went back on maggot and caught a few more before switching to the maggot rig down the middle. At first I only caught small roach, so I kept potting in some maggots and by fishing double red maggot I caught a few F1's and a surprise barbel.
At the end of the match I had 26 F1's 2 barbel and a few small roach and perch. I weighed 31lb 6oz. On the older lakes catching 26 F1's could net you between 50-80lb so up against a bit when catching a smaller stamp of fish. The angler to my right had 36lb and I only seen the guy to my left catch 1 fish. The lake sections were won with over 50lb. The match itself was won by Jamie Hughes with 141lb off Canal peg 1. Well done Jamie and good luck in the final.
I suppose my day could have been better and worse, at least I caught a few and was kept busy for most of the day. On the whole I know that opinions are mixed about Fish O Mania matches, but I actually enjoyed the day. Its good to fish in the big matches once in a while, as long as you catch a few I guess.
Tight lines.
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