908 ROACH AS ‘MR WHIPPY’ TRIUMPHS...
Three fish a minute for five hours – phew!
AWHIP-FISHING expert has won a silvers-only match by catching no fewer than 908 roach in just five hours.
Martin Charnock, who is known as ‘Mr Whippy’ by his fellow Carshalton and District AS members, fished just 2.5m of whip to hand during the club’s 26-peg contest at Sumners Ponds to amass 35lb 5oz of small redfins.
Feeding and fishing maggots close in at the West Sussex venue, the 55-year-old kept the fish coming from start to finish.
He said: “A lot of the members fish for skimmers and tench in these matches, but I’ve found the roach provide instant action under the right conditions.
“On the day the weather was awful, with torrential rain, so I really didn’t fancy fishing out far. I just set up 2.5m of my trusty Colmic whip and fished single red maggot 18ins deep on a size 16 hook over loosefed maggots and sloppy groundbait.
“The whip meant I could get the roach in quickly. In my best hour I caught 156 fish.”
The Surrey angler ended the match more than 17lb ahead of second-placed Max Calverley, who also had an impressive match and caught more than 400 roach.
Martin explained why the whip is such a key component in putting together such a huge weight of small fish.
“The whip is just so efficient at bringing small fish to the net quickly,” he said.
“I have around 20 of them at home and they’ve all helped me win a fair bit of match money over the years.
“To me catching 400lb of carp isn’t fishing and I don’t like it. I much prefer to catch roach, no matter what the size ,and catching them on a whip is the most exciting way of catching them I can think of.”