DUKES STORM TO BIG FINAL
Angling Times/Bait-Tech Supercup Midlands Semi Final (Sat) Tunnel Barn Farm, High, New, Club & Jenny’s Pools (11 teams)
“Being flexible was the key to victory”
THE first of this year’s three Supercup Semi-Finals saw 11 teams face off at a moody Tunnel Barn Farm, where changing air pressure saw well-laid plans go out of the window as the carp and F1s played hard to get across the four lakes.
Despite the challenges faced, though, Mansfield-based Springvale Dukes got it right to record a superb 14-point winning score, seeing them through in top spot closely followed by local lads Cornstores Angling on 17. After that, the scores increased a bit in the battle to bag one of the remaining three final spots. JVAC were third on 31 points, Wyre Forest AC fourth with 34 and Tackle Shack Silver fifth on 35.
Tackle Shack’s score put them level with defending champions Nathan’s of Nottingham, but they got the nod thanks to two section wins against the one of Nathan’s to knock the champs out.
Springvale’s super score saw them post a section win from Daz Staley on Jenny’s Pool, his 101-9-0 net also getting him second spot individually. Three seconds from Jason Jones on High Pool, Lee Parker on New Pool and Mick Elliott on Club Pool, backed up by a third in section for Ian Boyd on New and a fourth for Mark Bower on High, clinched it.
“Practice paid off for us, as we had put a lot of time in and seen how the lakes had changed over a few weeks,” Jason said.
“Casters were key, but more in the edge than shallow, and we all agreed that being flexible and not sticking to one thing for too long would be important. If we weren’t catching, we had to move somewhere else or try a different method or bait.
“I caught 50lb in the last two hours on paste, something I doubt a lot of anglers fishing would have tried, but it worked,” he continued. “Daz in second overall caught a lot of his fish on maggot in the edge, so it was a case of battling on, chopping and changing as the fish didn’t seem to be settled on one line. The change from hot weather to much cooler conditions and the air pressure falling changed the fishing drastically!”
ONE FISH SEALS INDIVIDUAL GLORY
The individual race centred around pegs on the adjacent Club and Jenny’s Pools, and it was Cornstores Angling skipper Ben Sutor who came home first. He caught 104-5-0 from peg 19 on Club, closely followed by Daz Staley, of the day’s winners, with 101-9-0 from Jenny’s Pool – just one fish effectively dividing them!
“On Club Pool you tend to want to draw an end peg or peg 19 to do well, so I had no complaints about the draw,” Ben said.
“What did catch a lot of people out was how hard the lakes fished from midweek. My weight wasn’t a big one for Tunnel Barn and even though there were a lot of fish moving about, they were very hard to pin down.
“I started across at 14.5m, fishing worm head over loosefed caster shallow to two reedbeds, and had a good three hours catching F1s and six carp,” he revealed.
“Once that faded, I went down the middle doing the same thing and had a run of F1s before finishing in the margins with dead maggot and groundbait for mainly F1s.”