Tactics from round one

Pellet wag the deciding tactic

THE 2018 UK Angling Championships kicked off last week with a new sponsor and new venues for the four-round series to find Britain’s best all-round match angler.

With backing this year from Cresta and Gamakatsu, the first match was held at Hampshire’s Gold Valley Lakes, where Steve Rothery drew first blood.

The 51-year-old machine repairer from Birstall, West Yorkshire, topped the 72-strong field with 180-0-0 of carp to 14lb from peg 113 on Syndicate Lake.

With a stiff wind blowing towards him, the first thing Steve noticed on arrival at his peg was the large number of carp at the surface.

“There were loads of them and they weren’t very far out, so I fancied the peg for a few fish,” said the Garbolino Lindholme man. Kicking off by fishing pellet on the deck at 6m for just a couple of roach, Steve regularly fed 8mm pellets further out and soon after casting a bomb over them he caught three carp for around 30lb in the next half-hour.

But it was a change to a pellet waggler set-up that transformed his fortunes. “There were still a lot of carp at the surface, and once I was happy that I had fed for long enough, I cast to them and caught fish into double figures steadily, changing depths between 2ft 6ins and 4ft and using a lassoed 8mm pellet.

“I couldn’t feed very far out in the strong headwind so I just fished as far as I could accurately feed and cast, firing out two lots of four or five pellets and then casting on top of them. I then either caught instantly or not at all, so I had to repeat the process many times,” said Steve.

The next three hours of the afternoon match were spent doing this, before Steve fed his margin swim.

“I wasn’t at all sure I’d catch in the margins,” he said. “I was surrounded by trees but there was one small gap where there was 4ft of water. That’s where I cupped in six big potfuls of groundbait and dead maggots with a couple of hours to go.”

With strong pole gear at the ready in the potentially snaggy swim, Steve soon saw a tail and

hastily switched to two ‘slapped’ worms on the pole. That resulted in an almost instant 12-pounder.

“After that it was a case of chopping and changing between pole and pellet waggler to keep fish coming for the rest of the contest,” he said.

“The fact that the match was fished between 1pm and 6pm definitely helped, because the fish stayed in the margins for longer than they would do in a match fished to normal times.”

Runner-up was former UK champion and Steve’s roommate Marc Rodger (Mosella/ Marukyu).

He drew peg 121 on the opposite side of the lake and finished with 128-2-0 taken mainly on pellet waggler tactics.

“It was a great start to this year’s series,” said new UK Champs organiser Andy Kinder.

“The venue fished hard in places, but there’s everything to play for in the next round at The Glebe.”