Rob Wootton (Middy/Dynamite) from Leicestershire became the twelfth qualifier for the Fish ‘O’ Mania XVII Final next month by winning at the match at Heronbrook Fishery, Slindon, near Eccleshall, Staffordshire on Wednesday 2nd June.
All the talk was for a draw on the Meadow Pool because it had produced some huge match winning weights in recent events.
However, things never really went to plan and Meadow Pool took a back seat as the other pools sprung into life. Rob Wootton an Angling Consultant drew on Island 1 (permanent peg 2) and in a match where many anglers still had chances at the halfway stage Rob, who was last year’s Fish ‘O’ Mania final runner-up, started off his match on a small method feeder and single red maggot cast to the sill of the island. He caught a skimmer after five minutes, and picked off one or two F1s. He was also feeding his 12 – 13 metres swim with casters, fishing just eight inches deep after an hour. He caught F1s on the shallow tactic, but the fish kept ‘backing off’ leading to some blank spells. Rob then tried a small piece of meat on his method feeder and the result was two carp of 10 lb and 8 lb in quick succession. For the rest of the match Rob picked off the odd small carp and F1s by chopping and changing between the method feeder and poled caster to end up with 78-12-0. Rob is now looking forward to the final and hopes he will go one better than last year. To date Rob is so far the only angler from last year’s list of finalists to qualify this time around for the Fish ‘O’ Mania final, with only four qualifiers remaining.
Runner-up was Barnsley based Brent Richards (Premier AC) on Canal 3, where he poled meat to net carp to 12 lb in his close 74-8-0. In third place was Fish ‘O’ Mania veteran, Darren Cox (Garbolino/Kamasan Starlets) who was left rueing the loss of some very big carp that kept shedding the hook and had to settle with 66-6-0 of Match Pool carp. Franek Staniuszko (Garbolino Elton) was fourth with 65-4-0 on Canal Pool. In fifth place was Richard Yates (Ted Carter, Preston) 58-3-0 on Bridge 16 and in sixth was Martin Harrell (Foster’s) 55-6-0 on Meadow 9.
The next Fish ‘O’ Mania qualifier moves into Yorkshire for Saturday’s match at The Oaks at Sessay.
