Championship An unseasonal cool breeze had most of the 157 competitors reaching for their coats for the Angling Trust Veterans National Championship held on Wednesday 29th July 2015, but at least the fish hotted things up for most at the prolific Makins Fishery, Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
With the competitors spread across all 3 phases it was difficult to get a feel of where the winner would come from, although Lakes 3, 5 and Lizard were being touted as favourites at the draw. A slow start for most meant they had to wait till later in day for the action to hot up and when the skimmers and carp eventually fed nets were being filled up fast.
Some lovely bags of skimmers were caught throughout the venue, but carp were needed in numbers to boost you up the leader board. England Veterans International Roger Marlow (Drennan Leicester Sensas) found carp in abundance in his corner peg 15 on Lake 5 and was one of the few to catch steadily all day.
Fishing 8mm banded pellet and maggot on the pole at 5m and down the edge later in the match he caught 22 carp up to 12 lb and a net ful of skimmers for 118-12-0 and duly added the crown of Veterans National Champion 2015 to his long list of honours.
Jeffrey Church (Coleman’s Bait & Tackle), fishing at peg 33 on Lizard also tamed carp to 12 lb and skimmers by fishing paste and meat on the pole down the edge to finish as runner up with 93-12-0.
Lake 5 also threw up 3rd place which went to Terry Phillips (Attleborough Sports Nuneaton) at peg 4 but he only caught in the last 2 hours when he started slapping 6mm pellet at 13m and ended up with 88-0-0 of carp in the net. So a good and enjoyable day was had by most and even the rain held off till after the match.
Top 7 results; 1st Roger Marlow (Drennan Leicester Sensas) 118-12-0
2nd Jeffrey Church (Colemans Bait & Tackle) 93-12-0
3rd Terry Phillips (Attleborough Sports Nuneaton) 88-0-0
4th Alec Rawlings (Skegness) 77-4-0 4th John Jones (Northwich) 77-4-0
6th Keith Killick (Rayleigh) 71-6-0
7th Jim Randall (North Walsham) 69-0-0
The Angling Trust would like to thank Alan and his staff at Makins for making it a very pleasant day. Next year the Veterans National will take place at Tunnel Barn Farm on Wednesday 27th July 2016.
