Early morning rain soon cleared to leave a bright, windy day for the 130 anglers competing in round eight of Fish ‘O’ Mania held at prolific Kent fishery Monk Lakes earlier this week. The contest was pegged over the four match lakes, plus Bridges Lake, but the word at the draw bag on the morning was that not very many anglers wanted to draw Bridges.
Chertsey, Surrey-based bait company owner Perry Stone was, however, quite happy with his draw at peg B5 on Bridges as he recorded a huge winning weight of 207lb 14oz comprising mostly carp to 16lb plus a couple of bream. Perry fished the method feeder with pellet hookbait casting 80 yards to the edge of an island and the 2013 grand final will be Perry’s third appearance.
Runner up was Tony Curd (MAP/Bait Tech), another former Fish ‘O’ Mania finalist, who drew Peg 134 on Match Lake 4 where he fished pellet shallow on the long pole to take carp to 5lb in his net of 176lb 8oz. Lake 4 also provided third place for Dean Lock (DELCAC) who also fished pellet shallow to record 174lb of carp. In fourth place with 152lb 8oz from Peg 87 on Lake 2 was Miles Levy from Basingstoke fishing method feeder.
There were 14 weights over 100lb on the day and eight of the ten peg sections needed 100lb or more to win them.
The ninth Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifier action moves to The Oaks Fishery at Thirsk this weekend.
