MARTIN FAMILY TRIUMPHS ON HOME TERRITORY
Strength in depth sees the Dartford squad safely into the Supercup final
FEW bookies would have taken bets on local favourites Team Martin winning the Southern semi-final of the Bait-Tech Supercup, taking place as it did on a venue 10 minutes from their Dartford base.
And so it proved on a red hot day at Puddledock Farm Fishery in Essex. The family-based side scored 20 points to win by three from fellow locals Bill’s Tackle. Whitemoor Lakes and South Cerney Gold made the drive from Dorset and Wiltshire pay off with third and fourth, last spot in the final going to Johnson Matthey AC.
Made up of mainly family members Steve, Dan, Alfie, Jay, Vinnie and Tommy, Team Martin racked up a second in section and a second overall from Dan, section wins for Steve and Vinnie, fourths from Tommy and Jay and an eighth from young Alfie seeing them into yet another final next month.
Individual action centred around A section on the Snake Lake where Danny Mason won from peg 10 with 133-0-0 against Dan Martin’s 113-8-0 on peg 2.
“Peg 10 is a good peg for the margins because the right-hand bank collapsed a few years ago and was rebuilt, making it really shallow, so my plan was to catch what I could fishing across to the island with pellet and then come into the edge with dead maggot and groundbait,” Danny said.
“Fishing across was tough with a lot of foul hooked fish and I probably only had 20lb in the first few hours. Once I fed that shallower margin, where there was 18 inches of water, there were tails from carp immediately!”
Using a bunch of dead red maggots and fishing 2ft away from the bank, Danny made hay while the sun shone, taking around 110lb in the second half of the match including a brace of 10lb carp in his final two drop ins to get him over the line.