Heavy rain overnight and cold conditions all day helped to make this a hard match for most of the anglers at the tenth Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifier held at Barford Lakes, Norwich.
As far as results were concerned it was Andrew Leather’s lucky day: the Hotrods angler was a reserve and only got a ticket to fish on the morning of the event whereupon he drew fancied peg 30, a corner peg on the Match Lake. To complete his lucky draw the peg on his left wasn’t drawn leaving Andrew not only on a prime peg, but with plenty of space to boot! Andrew fished worm and caster to the corner and worm and groundbait to the left to take fish virtually all day to win with 154lb 15oz of F1s and carp to 10lb.
Runner up Marc Rodger from Ossett drew peg 3 on the Top Lake where he fished pellet shallow down the edge to net carp and F1s for his 91lb net. In third place was local angler Lee Carver with 78lb 6oz from peg 29 on the Pleasure Lake. Lee fished pellet waggler to take carp to 14lb. Fourth place went to Matthew Bunting (Dersingham AC) with 78lb of carp from the margins on Pleasure 23, his biggest carp weighing in at 17lb 8oz.
The organisers note that for such a prestigious competition, with huge demand for places on most heats, that it was disappointing to have seven empty pegs on the day when anglers failed to show – and not enough reserves to fill them all.
The next Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifier takes place this weekend at Aston Park Lakes in Sheffield.
