MATCH NEWS
Kerry makes switch for win
ONE thing that sets top match anglers apart from the rest is their ability to think on the hoof and make changes that win the day.
Lee Kerry is one such angler. The reigning Feedermasters champion turned in a matchwinning performance in the final round of the SonuBaits Pairs at Retford’s Hallcroft Fishery to see him and partner Will Freeman to overall glory and the £1,500 top prize, and all after he made a mid-match decision that went very much against his original plan.
Handed peg 27 on the Croft Pool at the draw, Lee started the match fishing for carp but drawing a blank with two hours gone, he needed to get the show back on the road…
At the peg
“To draw end peg 27 on the Croft Pool was ideal for my plan to catch carp as there’s a long bed of reeds lining the end bank where the carp live. Even though the Feedermasters Pairs is a silverfish event, any carp weighing over 1lb counts as 1lb, so 10 fish are as good as catching 10 big skimmers, making them worth fishing for.
“The lake is only 30m wide so I cast along the reeds using a feeder with no feed in it, essentially ‘dobbing’ a piece of corn as you would on the pole, casting to different spots to see if any carp were at home.
A slow start
“After two hours I’d hardly had a bite and could see only one carp had been caught on the lake. It made no sense to keep fishing for them. Even though I’d wasted a few hours, changing to fishing for roach, perch and skimmers with pinkies and maggots would still catch me enough to get to 10lb, but now I was up against the clock!
That’s more like it!
“I decided to change to using a small cage feeder with F1 Dark groundbait and pinkies, fishing a single maggot or double pinkie on the hook for roach, perch and the small 6oz carp that the lake is full of. I still cast to that same spot, roughly 16m along the bank but around 2m away from the reeds.
“The response from the fish was immediate. I caught roach, perch, tench and the occasional carp and had getting on for 4lb in an hour, which was the pace I wanted. With 90 minutes to go, things were slowing up and I needed to make another change.
“An ICS Maggot Feeder took over, holding just half-a-dozen maggots for each cast and this worked like a dream. The size of fish I was catching were much bigger, with a trio of perch weighing 1lb each boosting the net. I think that the fish had got fed up of groundbait and much preferred maggots on their own.
At the scales
“I’d had a great day’s fishing whatever I ended up weighing. Anglers around me reckoned I’d got between 12lb and 14lb, but those little ‘stockie’ carp weigh more than you think and to have 21lb really surprised me. Winning the match outright was a great result given the start I had.
“My partner in the pairs, Will Freeman, caught 8lb from the Moat Pool to give us almost 30lb of weight to add to our tally from the previous rounds. We’d caught more weight than either of us had hoped for and it saw us win the pairs by over 14lb.”
RESULT: 1 L Kerry, Preston Innovations, 21-10-0;
2 M Renshaw, Durham, 17-13-0; 3 R Hall, Cresta, 15-4-0. FINAL LEAGUE: 1 L Kerry and W Freeman, 123-11-0;
2 C Greensides and B Holmes, 109-3-0; 3 G Owen and R Hall, 103-6-0.