E.C.Tel Enigma “A” managed to catch only four trout between the four
E.C.Tel Enigma “A” managed to catch only four trout between the four-man team – yet they still qualified for the Rutland final in second place with the fantastic weight of 29lbs 14oz! More of that later!Top honours on a tough fishing day at a rather dour-mooded Hanningfield went to the Loop Queen Mother team – rather appropriately, as it was the royal Queen Mother’s 100th birthday on the day prior to the competition! The team of Dave Kidby, Tony Kirkham, Martin Conroy and Philip Hall amassed 15 trout to their rods – almost double the number of the French team APNLE who filled third spot. The Loop team opted to fish fast sinking lines and count them down between 20 and 30 seconds before stripping back. Successful flies were small boobies or fritz patterns. Tony Kirkham, who incidentally only came in as reserve for Andy Tamakloe, caught five trout weighing 14lbs 1oz for the top bag on the day. Tony was one of the few anglers who chose to fish away from the cages! The E C Tel Enigma team caught only four trout! – yet they were only 4lb 10oz behind the weight of the fifteen caught by the winners. This is how their weight “stacked up”! Lloyd Pallett one trout 9lbs 0oz 9lbs 0oz Bob Woodward blank Robert Sheriff 2 trout – 10lbs 2oz and 3lbs 9oz 13lbs 11oz Roy Alderslade one trout 7lbs 3oz 7lbs 3oz TOTAL 29lbs 14oz Successful method for this team was superglue buzzers on long leaders – quite a different approach to the winners I think you will agree!Only two teams qualified by rights, so John Horsey had to look back at all of the results for the season to work out the best “foreign” team. The Czech team were already qualified from Brenig, but due to costs declined a place in the finals. This left the best placed team as APNLE, thus John was able to invite them along at the prize-giving ceremony after the Hanningfield event. To say that the team were happy would be an understatement!So, all that is left for this competition is the two-day final at Rutland. That will be taking place on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th of August. I will report on that event in a fortnight’s time – and as I will be officiating at it, I will have the report published here before anyone else gets it to you.Tight lines,
Martin Cottis