Mossella Garbolino angler Dave Swain, a Maintenance program engineer from Stockport, won this weekend’s Fish-O-Mania qualifier with a weight of 150lbs 5ozs. Dave was making his 5th attempt to win the £25,000 jackpot.

Drawn on the Burr bank, Specimen Lake peg 13, with a gusting wind from his right, he decided to set his stall out to fish at 6 metres, feeding meat on a regular basis and using meat on the hook. His catch consisted exclusively of carp with his biggest fish being an 18lb 2oz specimen. Commented Dave after the match, “I’ve had a fantastic day at a fabulous fishery”.

Cloudy skies and a biting wind greeted the 130 competitors for this, the 6th qualifier in this years Fish-O-Mania competition at the prolific Maver Larford complex.

Although the wind had been blowing all week in the same direction, it had turned decidedly colder on Friday and, despite the weather forecast predicting a warmer day, this did not materialise.

Arena Lake was the Lake that most people fancied to win the match, however, with 20 pegs in use out of the 44 pegs on the lake, those in the know felt that this number of anglers on the lake would even it up with Match Lake and make it difficult to predict which lake would deliver the winner.

It transpired that Specimen Lake produced the competition winner. A few of the larger Larford carp from this lake decided to put in an appearance, the biggest being an 18lb 7oz fish banked by Des Shipp. There were other large fish banked from this lake and even bigger specimens being lost. Des also claimed fourth place with a weight of 107lbs 6ozs alternating between Method Feeder and Pole from Specimen Lake peg 7.

The 70 anglers that weighed in totalled a massive 4,105lbs of fish between them giving an average weight of 58.64lbs of fish per man.

Second place went to Phil Ringer who drew on Match Lake, peg 9. Fishing the Method Feeder he caught steadily throughout the day, banking fish up to 5lb, but couldn’t match the bigger fish that had decided to show on Specimen Lake.

Third place went to Matthew Morgan who drew on Arena Lake peg 38, with a weight of 109lbs 6ozs. Again using the method feeder, he caught mirror and common carp to 3lb.

In fifth place was Pemb Wrighting, with a weight of 98lbs 14ozs from Match Lake peg 12.

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