Thursday morning came and it was time to drive to the venue so i jumped in the van and started the 135 mile trip to the river. 5hours and a shed load of traffic later and i finally arrived at A SECTION were the rest of my team was waiting to greet me. Barnsley blacks had decided to practice on pegs 1-5 so i had a little catch up with them then decided to walk to B SECTION were Guss Brindal had placed team scotland to practice so it was off to the van for me to have a drive down to the ten mile bank. 10 minutes later i pulled up at C SECTION and every peg was taken so there was no guessing that this section had been tipped off as the favourite to produce fish. D D SECTION was empty so me and the FOSTERS TEAM ARMY lads decided to give it a go and i was on peg D22. First thing to do was the groundbait: 1/2 kilo sensas 3000 LAKE 1/2 kilo sensas gros gardons 2kilo mole hill soil. RIGS: jean francois 2g bodied float 4g sensas bogdan flattie. i only had 1 line and that was at 13m because at 11m there was just no depth and it was extremely snaggy. The flow here was going from right to left as C,D and E SECTION was on the opposite bank to A and B SECTION. I started off with 8 balls of groundbait and 2 balls of leam with 150mil of joker 1m up stream of my swim to maximise my killing zone. 3 hours later and the tip of my float finally sailed under and i had 1oz roach on which was verry welcome
. At the end of the day i was the only catcher in the section which was worying. Later that night it was time for a beer and a TEAM discution, i phoned Matt godfrey and he told me peg A1-A2 had both blanked and A3-A4 had a skimmer each and a few roach, next on the phone was Gus brindle and he told me he had a 2lb rudd and a few roach on B23, next on the phone was Rob hewison and he confirmed what i already knew which was that they had bagged up on C section pegs C1-C8. The next practice day came and it was a 0630hrs start so we could get on C section and we decided to go on pegs C6-C10 so we could keep an eye on pegs C1-C5 which Mark downes had picked for the starlets. I kept all my tactics the same apart from stepping up my bodied float to 3g due to extra depth at the end of the day i had 2 8oz roach off peg C10, Peg C9 blanked and C8-C1 all caught well. In A SECTION A1-A2 blanked again and A3 had 35lb of bream B section was throwing up some small roach,Darren bickerton on C1 had a bite a chuck and bagged up, C2-C8 had all caught, D SECTION and E SECTION both struggled. Back to the bar for a few beers and a team talk and this is what we came up with: if you draw early A SECTION go all out with 10-20balls, B SECTION 8 balls and dont force the peg, early C SECTION 10-20balls, D section 6 balls and final E SECTION which we knew nothing about 6 balls. FINALLY THE BIG DAY 1, i drew peg A1 and as you could you imagine i was absolutley gutted because not 1 single fish had come out of that peg in the 2 practice days and it was the windyest section out of the lot. i arrived at my peg and mixed my normal SENSAS lake and gros gardons mix but ontop of that another 1kilo of SENSAS lake whith a handfull of casters and 250mil of chopped worm mixed in. I then set up a 4g,8g,10g flattie and 3g jean francois boddied float. The wind was absolutley unreal and no one seemed to have 13m of pole set up so i risked it and went for the whole 13m but i also set a spare pole up just incase i broke the one i was using. ALL IN.......... 10balls lake and gross gardons,2balls lake worm and caster,2balls 250mil joker. i had a steady match catching 1 perch 4 bream and 50 roach for 13.8.08 and a section win
. DAY 2 peg D25, 2oz had come off it the day before so i knew there was at least 1 fish to go for which was a good sign. I set up 4g flattie 3g jean francois. ALL IN......... 8BALLS SENSAS lake and gros gardons,2balls 100mil joker. i had a hard match catching 6 roach for 1.6.0 and a section 2nd. Back at the presentation i had people congratulating me on a great performance and everyone was saying id won it but it was just to much to take in and i had to try and stay calm which wasnt easy. WINNER!!!!!! Role on the soar masters.......
Its a massive match to win and under such hard conditions you've done really well mate 
