Through To The Final!

Yesterday I won the On The Flyer TV Winter Classic silverfish qualifier at Burton Farm with just 4lb 13oz! A proper old school scratching match, harking back to my canal fishing days!

Caught a couple early on maggot, then pinkies and a few crucial baby skimmers on worm over small amounts of Sonubaits Thatchers and F1 Dark. Best fish was a 12-14oz skimmer that weeded me up, but a bit of steady pressure eventually cut through the stems and somehow didn’t break my fine hooklength.

I was on a clear and tightly pegged Redwood Lake and even the little roach backed off every time you caught one or two, so I had to work four swims to eke out bites with light rigs.

Steve Harwood was 2nd overall with 4lb 2oz in my zone and no one else broke the 3lb barrier. My old canal buddy Liam Lynott was the other qualifier, winning his 12 pegs with 2lb 12oz.

Probably the lowest weight I’ve ever won a match with on a commercial fishery and ‘kind of’ made a nice change to work so hard for every bite.

So now Liam and I are both through to the £10,000 Winter Classic Final at Meadowlands next year! Great to qualify at my first ever attempt at the competition, but it now means I’ll miss out on all the other nice qualifiers I’d pencilled in.