The top ten teams from the Angling Trust’s Division One National Championships battled it out in a two day event fished to international rules and the winning team, Starlets, will travel to Italy next year to compete in the World Club Championships.
The River Trent’s famous Newark Dyke was the venue for the prestigious match, with a fantastic £7,000 first prize donated by the sponsors Preston Innovations, which will help Starlets AS in their quest to win gold in Italy.
Heavy rain early in the week created a problem for the organisers with the river carrying a lot of extra water but a slight change in pegging eliminated some of the worst areas. The levels dropped slightly by Saturday and, although the pace had lessened a little, 40g flat floats were still needed in some sections to present a bait.
Normally bloodworm and joker would have been used by all teams to tempt the Newark Dyke’s roach and skimmers, but this time big bream and barbel played a major part in their plans.
On day one small fish were caught close in out of the main flow, but as the match progressed bream and barbel put in an appearance for some of those anglers who fished into the main current using worm as hook bait.
Rob Perkins drawn in ‘B’ section put together an impressive catch of skimmers, roach and bream to weigh 9.340kg which helped his Matrix Dynamite Trentmen team win the first day.
Day One Team Results
1 Matrix Dynamite Trentmen 20 points
2 Starlets AS 24 points
3 Barnsley and District AAS 27 points
Day One Individual Results
1 Rob Perkins 9.340 kg
2 Steve Hemingray 7.950 kg
3 Barry Oliver 5.770 kg
The second day brought some improvement to catches as the flow descreased and the colour started to drop out, allowing better bait presentation. Big fish, especially barbel, decided to have a go and in some areas fish in excess of 4kg were landed.
This time ‘A’ section, opposite the weir at Farndon, saw Barnsley’s Simon Fields land four big fish to weigh an impressive 13.760kg on pole fished worm. In second place Eric Yeomans of Shakespeare landed three fish for 9.490kg.
In the team stakes a second day’s winning performance by Barnsley and District AAS was not quite enough to overtake Starlets AS who held on to their lead by just 1.5 points.
Day Two Team Results
1 Barnsley and District AAS 19 points
2 Starlets AS 20.5 points
3 Team Daiwa Dorking 22 points
Day Two Individual Results
1 Simon Fields 13.760 kg
2 Eric Yeomans 9.490 kg
3 Darren Cox 5.440 kg
Final Team Result
1 Starlets AS 44.5 points
2 Barnsley and District AAS 46 points
3 Matrix Dynamite Trentmen 51.5 points
Final Individual Results
1 Ade Whittle Starlets AS 2 points 7.710 kg
2 Will Raison Daiwa Dorking 4 points 6.160 kg
3 Matt Godfrey Barnsley and Dist AAS 4 points 4.710 kg
Starlets AS not only walked away with the team title but Ade Whittle of Starlets AS was the winning individual with a fantastic 2 points and 7.710kg, Ade was presented with a £1,000 cheque from sponsors Preston Innovations.
