ZAC NICKS FISH O’ QUALIFIER
Tight finish between two Preston rods at Monk Lakes
ZAC BROWN booked his place in the Fish O’Mania final at Hayfield Lakes following a tight qualifier at Monk Lakes.
Battling against the 100-strong field at the Kent complex Zac, a former Match This champion, just got the nod from fellow Preston man Andy Power, weighing in 163-10-0 from peg 68 on Lake 2.
Zac had a spare peg to his left, but after a couple of hours things weren’t going to plan. His long pole and paste line eventually came good, though, rounded off with a run of carp in the margins on paste. Zac takes up the story...
“Normally on Lake 2, peg 67 is the one you want as you can reach a massive reed bed on the pole, but it wasn’t drawn, so immediately I felt I had a much better chance next door. My plan was to fish pellets short, paste on the long pole and then, if need be, go down the margins late on. There were fish on the surface, too, so I set up a mugging rig to cover that option.
“Starting on pellet at 6m, I kindered in a few hard 6mms over the top and fully expected to catch – but had nothing! I tried to see if I could mug some fish on pellet shallow, but although I had two carp and lost a few, they didn’t seem interested.
“Paste at 13m was my final throw of the dice after 90 minutes! Paste does work well at Monk, and after 15 minutes I began to see some fizzing in the peg and then caught a carp. Fizzing shows that a number of fish have moved into the area.
“Over the next two hours bites were steady and I was working my way towards 100lb with just under two hours to go. The best ploy was to loosefeed 6mm pellets over the top, potting in only a few along with the paste when I dropped in each time.
“A soft paste worked best, pieces around the size of a grape made out of SonuBaits Supercrush Expander groundbait that I’d riddled to leave a fine mix.”
TIME FOR THE EDGE
“Very suddenly the peg went dead, with not a sign anywhere and no fizzing. I think this is sometimes down to the amount of silt that the fish have churned up, reducing visibility and making them move off.
“Whatever the reason, I needed to make a decision – start a new long pole line or go in the margins. With the space I had, the margins won! Big potting groundbait up to the empty platform next door, I used paste and picked off seven carp in the final hour.”
AT THE SCALES
“On my clicker, I’d got close to 180lb and was feeling pretty confident, although the gravepine was saying that Andy Power had caught well over on Lake 3.
“I didn’t think he’d catch enough from the peg he was on, though, but you never know. I was first to weigh, and I’d actually overestimated a bit – perhaps the carp were a bit light from being spawned out?
“I felt 163lb would win but was worried that Andy might have close to that, so when the news came through that he’d got 157lb and I’d nicked it, there was a bit of relief!”