England international Will Raison from Aldershot claimed his place in the Fish ‘O’ Mania Grand final with a superb performance at Maver Larford Fishery last weekend.
Having recently being selected to fish both the European and World Championships in Italy and Hungary respectively this year, May continued to bring success for the 2005 European Individual Gold medalist. Not having been on the reserve list for the qualifier at Maver Larford he rode his luck and received a ticket once the reserve list had been exhausted.
However, there was no luck involved in his performance as Will showed all the skill and experience which has made him a resident in the England teams to fish his peg well and produce a winning weight of 127lb 1oz.
Will drew peg 26 on Specimen Lake in the middle of Burr Bank and arrived at his peg to see hundreds of Carp cruising on the top in the middle of the Lake. Using his experience and knowledge of Carp and their spawning patterns Will knew they would not be feeding as normal and set out his tactics for the day fishing the big waggler and ground bait at distance.
With the waggler set at around 18 inches deep and feeding almost 6kgs of ground bait throughout the match, using either pellet or triple red maggot hook bait, Will landed 21 Carp to 14lb to give him his winning weight.
Will, who has only fished three qualifiers before this weekend commented, “I have been fishing at Maver a lot recently with four or five matches in recent weeks. It’s been a lucky venue for me as I have been doing well on Speciman Lake, so was more than happy to be drawn on it. Being part of the international set up it takes up a lot of time, so it is not always possible to fish many of these Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifiers. However, it has always been one of my personal ambitions to win Fish ‘O’ Mania, not for the money but because it is such a prestigious event. It looks like a tough final this year so I will be putting in a lot of practice before the final on the 21st in Doncaster.”
Specimen Lake proved the strongest lake with second place going to local angler Paul Hubbard from Walsall who drew peg 47 opposite Will on peg 26. During weighing in it was rumored that Paul had the stronger catch of the two. However, it was not to be and he had to settle for second place with 112lb of Carp to 14lb.
Third place went to angling consultant Steve Ringer from Northampton who had drawn Match Lake, peg 41. He initially started on the method feeder tight to the island to catch a few F1s and then switched to the pole shallow to finish the match with 103lb 1oz.
