‘PEG WAS BLACK WITH CARP’ SAYS THE WINNER
233lb-plus Decoy net worth £1,000 in round two clash
IT WAS more like March than July for last week’s second round of the Cresta/Gamakatsu UK Angling Champs at Decoy Lakes.
But that didn’t prevent a string of fine weights, including a winning 233-12-0 for winner Steve Rothery from Yorkshire.
Drawing peg 2 on Horseshoe Lake at the Cambridgeshire complex, the Garbolino Lindholme man set about his swim with a pellet attack shallow and on the deck at 11m and short at 5m before moving into the margins. He caught carp well into double figures alongside F1s to take the £1,000 prize ahead of runner-up Jack Harness.
“I’d never seen Decoy before, let alone fished it, so when I drew the peg I asked a few locals what was what and they all told me I’d need to fish shallow for F1s,” said Birstall-based Steve.
“I got to the peg and it was hammering down with rain and blowing a gale – hardly great shallow fishing conditions. I thought that just maybe there might be carp sat below those F1s on the deck so I began to factor this into my plan.”
Beginning short at around 5m, Steve fished a banded 6mm pellet and had a great start with around 30lb of carp in the opening 20 minutes, all the time feeding 4mm pellets at 11m to fish shallow – he couldn’t fish further out owing to the wind!
“When I changed to shallow I caught F1s but the wind was a problem. Once I saw Grant Albutt further up the lake begin to catch shallow I knew I couldn’t match him fishing this way so I’d need to go on the deck,” he explained.
“I changed over to a 6mm pellet on the deck and fed pellet with a pole pot and pinging with the catapult. It was solid with carp from 5lb-10lb and I stayed on this until a few hours to go. I can only think the drop in air pressure of
recent days made the carp drop down in the water.”
Returning to the 5m line, more carp followed, but Steve didn’t think his margin lines, so important in summer matches on commercials, would produce as there was only a foot of water to play with. He’d fed there from the halfway point but hadn’t seen a sign of a fish.
“I think there was around 90 minutes left when I cupped in a big pot of micro pellets and dead red maggots in both margins and before I could pick up my top kit to go back out on the short line, tails came up!” Steve revealed.
“It was carp soup, so needless to say I changed to the edge with double worm on the hook and literally dropped the bait in front of where I could see the biggest tail breaking the surface.
“There’s no point fishing for a 3lb carp when there’s one three times that size in the peg!”
Alternating between both edges gave Steve 90lb in that final 90 minutes to see him weigh in that big final tally, although he admits he was very fortunate to get an end peg.
“You need a good draw when you are fishing against this standard of angler, no doubt about it. The peg was black with carp, though, and no matter what I did, I caught fish,” he concluded.