Late carp for National glory

mark Gillibrand, email

On Saturday, June 29, my son Corey Gillibrand fished his first Junior Nationals match for the Sensas Datume360 team. This was held at Makins Fishery.

We all met up at Makins around 8am. All the talk was not to draw Derwent as it hadn't been fishing very well recently. At 9am the team leader, Harry, drew for the team. Five minutes later he returned and, you've guessed it, Corey was on Derwent peg 1!

We jumped in the car and headed off to his peg. On arriving it turned out he was on an end peg in a corner which gave us a little hope. Corey set up with six top kits. This was the most he's every set up for a match but he wanted to cover everything to give him and the team the best possible chance.

The ' all in' was shouted and he started down his left margin. Two minutes in he hooked and landed a nice carp. Corey didn't want to get his hopes up too early, but he went straight back in and that's when it all changed. He tried all his options over the next three hours which only resulted in a single skimmer. Things weren't looking good.

With two hours to go he fed his right- hand margin with a big pot of groundbait and left it for 10 minutes. When he fished the spot his float shot under and a nice carp was landed. He went back in again and the same thing happened a third time.

With just eight minutes to go and a few carp in the net he lowered in his rig for what would most likely be the last action of the day. The float shot under and he was clearly attached to a big carp. After a good fight the carp was landed – it only just fitted in his landing net! The all out was shouted and that was it!

Corey was the first to weigh on his section and he had 9.625 kilos with the final carp weighing 4.575 kilos on its own. We packed up and made our way back to the presentation and to see how everyone had done.

Corey had won his section to help the team finish second overall. He can't wait for next year's match. Well done, a great team effort.