Spotlight on the week’s biggest events
Three early carp seal £2,000 victory
“Matt’s £2,018 winner’s purse worked out at a little over £183 per fish!”
BARSTON MASTERS FINAL Barston Lakes (76 pegs)
ELEVEN fish were enough to deliver Leicester angler Matt Snodin a bumper payday in the Barston Masters Final last weekend.
His 85-3-0 net – made up of seven carp, three F1s and a lone skimmer – gave him the £2,018 winner’s purse that worked out at a little over £183 per fish!
Fished by 76 qualifiers from matches throughout the year at Barston Lakes, the series all boiled down to this big final and it turned out be close.
The capture of a couple of the Main Lake’s famed big carp potentially made all the difference for Matt, who finished 13lb in front of Sensas-backed runner-up Chris Hill.
Drawing peg 56 on the river bank just past the famed point, Matt was pleased with the area. The wind was blowing down to his end of the lake and he went for an all-out feeder attack, and was rewarded with three big carp in his opening three casts.
“The pegging was actually a bit tight around where I drew, as the dam wall was also in. So, rather than casting long, I decided to drop on to a line at 40m. I felt that I’d have my own water there all-day,” Matt said.
“I fished a 24g Hybrid feeder with micro pellets and a 6mm Ringer’s Chocolate Orange Wafter on a 10ft rod and got off to the best of starts.
“Those three carp together weighed 32lb, but from then on it was a bit of a waiting game.”
Casting every five minutes, Matt’s remaining bites came quickly within three or four minutes of the feeder landing.
At times he went 10m past to keep in touch with the fish when things went quiet, picking off the odd fish to keep in contention.
His decision to go short was vindicated at the scales as the anglers either side of him weighed 31lb and failed to weigh in, respectively.
Runner-up Chris, on peg 71 on the dam wall, also used Hybrid feeder and wafters or pellets to take a 72-4-0 mix of carp, F1s and skimmers to earn himself £1,000.
Result: 1 M Snodin, Leicester, 85-3-0; 2 C Hill, Sensas, 72-4-0; 3 C Pavlou, Derby, 65-0-0; 4 P Jupp, Leicester, 44-0-0; 5 I Winch, PIP, 42-6-0.