HEMINGRAY BAGS WHITE ACRES SILVERS FESTIVAL TITLE
England star continues his great run
JUST weeks after topping the Drennanbacked Silverfish Weekend at White Acres, England star Steve Hemingray returned to win the 72-peg five-day Garbolino Silverfish Festival with a clear 32pts.
Drennan man Steve ended the week two points clear of Mark Fox with Nathan Hughes taking third. The Leicester angler’s score was made up of four section wins after everyone dropped their worst score, although going into the final day of action he wasn’t home and dry by any stretch of the imagination.
“There was one angler who had three wins and a third against my four wins, so although I was leading, if he had won his section I’d have needed to be better than third in my section to win. The peg I drew on Friday gave me no chance of that!” Steve said.
“Fortunately he didn’t win,
which was just as well as I ended up third off a bit of a nohoper – but that’s the way these festivals go. The fishing has been tremendous, though, with the mild weather and cloud cover. Just as in the Drennan event, F1s played a massive part.”
With only natural baits allowed and no pole limit, Steve based his attack on each day around groundbait, dead maggot, pinkie and chopped worm, corn playing a part on a few days too as the fishing was more or less the same as in the Drennan festival.
“Day 1 put me on peg 31 on Pollawyn Lake, which can be very tricky, so to weigh in 49-1-0 to win the section and lake was a good result. It was nice to get a potential banana skin out of the way,” Steve explained.
“I fished maggot and groundbait at 14m and 5m to catch F1s and skimmers but day two was a whole new ball game for me, as I’d never fished the
Canal Lake before.”
Drawing peg 14 and in clear water conditions, maggot and groundbait again worked, fished at 13m and down the track along with a margin swim. The middle and edge were better in the windy weather and after two hours, he’d got 20 big F1s in the net before the lake died and just three more fish were added. Steve’s 48-0-0 was, however, enough to take the section.
“Day 3 saw a big storm hit us and I couldn’t fish much further than 8m from my draw, which was peg 2 on Twin Oaks Lake,” he recalled.
“Carp were a problem on this day and for every F1 I had, I had to land four carp beforehand! I finished on 53-12-0 of big F1s with the margins, in particular,
being really good. On Day 4 I drew a screamer in peg 16 on
Trelawney and had a great day with 86-5-0 to win the lake and section. I caught F1s and plenty of roach and skimmers from the 13m, 6m and edge lines.”
The final day of action proved the hardest, with peg 4 on Jenny’s Lake being plucked from the bag. Pegs 1 and 2 had been first and second in section all week and nothing changed.
A 31-6-0 net of skimmers and the odd F1 on waggler and long pole with corn and maggot and worm over groundbait at 10m and in the edge saw Steve into third in the section.
Result: 1 S Hemingray, Drennan, 32pts; 2 M Fox, Maver Midlands Dynamite Baits, 30 (dropping six points); 3 N Hughes, Nathan’s of Derby, 30 (dropping three points); 4 S Harwood, Drennan Oxford, 29 (dropping six points); 5 J Pitman, Rive Homestores, 29 (dropping five points – 231-8-0);
6 M Williams, Guru, 29 (dropping five points – 185-2-0).