A very strong field made their way to Messingham Sands Fishery in North Lincs for the 12th Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifier and with no less than seven previous champions and a host of grand finalists present it looked like it would be a hard-fought round.
Following his recent success booking a place in the 2013 ‘Maver Match This’ grand final, England International Tommy Pickering drew on the point (peg 30) on Oak Tree Lake and fished a banded 6 or 8mm pellet at 6 metres to take a total of 42 carp to 8lb to give him a winning weight of 144lb 10oz. Tommy was reported to be thrilled with the win, which has given him his second chance to lift one of the greatest titles that has so far eluded him – that of Fish ‘O’ Mania Champion.
Second place went to Andy Neal who drew peg 28 on Oak Tree and who was neck-and-neck with Tommy for most of the match, again fishing a short pole line but with a meat hook bait. Andy put together a total weight of carp to 8lb and skimmers to weight 125lb 8oz. Third place went to Grant Albutt pegged on Oak Tree (peg 3) who fished banded pellet shallow on a long pole to bring 113lb 9oz to the scales.
After the match ‘bridesmaid’ Grant said that following his recent Fish O’ Mania qualifying results, which show a huge run of near-misses, he was still looking forward to the possibilityof qualifying for this year’s grand final – all he can do is continue to put in the work and it will come!
