Saturday 10th June 2006 – Maver Pairs, The Oaks, Sessay.

No fishing today as I was drafted in at the last minute to run the Maver Pairs qualifier at The Oaks, Sessay.

I got there in plenty of time, as nothing had been prepared. By the time that the draw came around, there were 48 pairs that had paid onto the match.

In addition to the payment for the ticket and the pools on the day, I decided to run 2 further optional pools. A £1 optional winner take all and an optional £2 pairs winner take all. When Daylite Rothery arrived another optional pool was devised….

A £5 optional pool. Was I going to have fun trying to sort this lot out.

To try to make the match as fair as possible, I decided to peg 1 of the pairs on Maple Lake and his partner on Cedar Lake.

I got everybody under way, then had to shoot back to Leeds to get my bait from the tackle shop, then get back to The Oaks to sort the winners out, etc, etc.

Gary Jubb and Derek Jackson (both Diawa Goldthorpe) had drawn good pegs, Jubby was on Cedar 74 and Jacko was on Maple 66. Grandad Poole had drawn peg 62 on Maple. Son of Nightie was on Maple 10, with the wind blowing down the straight into 10 and blowing from left to right into the corner, he should do well from there. Dave Topshop had drawn Maple 8, Andy Stonner was on Maple 18 and Nightie was on Maple 56.

Xman had drawn a good peg on Cedar, 56. (John Illingworth won the match from the same peg the day after the Maver Pairs match, shows what a good angler can do from a good peg).

I decided prior to the draw that I was going to do 10 peg sections.

After arriving back at the venue following my flying visit to Leeds, I had a walk around the lakes. Son of Nightie was admitting to 40lb and was catching the odd fish up in the water at about 5m. SoN also told me that Topshop was catching. I carried on walking around the lake and spoke with Chris Watson (Maple 23), he was struggling. I walked round to Nightie and spoke with him for a short while. He had just started catching on small cubes of catmeat across to the island, but the wind was making presentation difficult.

I carried on round the lake and had a word with Jacko on peg 66. I am not sure what he had in his chopped worm as his hands where jet black. I thought that he had used coal dust and water to wash his hands, seriously!!! He was feeding small pots of chopped worm down the side and was admitting to about 40lb. Micky ‘Deirdre’ Barlow was also catching from Peg 1 on Maple.

I then went round Cedar Lake and had a word with Jubby, he was catching fish on top of the shelf, feeding small amounts of chopped worm and fishing with worm on the hook. He was admitting to 60 carp for about 50lb. I carried on round and sat behind Xman for a short while (not a lot happening here then), he was feeding a few pellets and caster topped off with green (swimstim) groundbait, and fishing with pellet on the hook. Didn’t see any Marinated Burbot Strip though.

‘Racing’ on peg 35 was just starting to catch the odd fish down the side towards peg 36. Marco was getting odd fish from Cedar 32. Chris Gorrell on Cedar 6 was catching by fishing in front of the footplate on peg 7.

One thing that I did realise was that everybody that I sat behind had a fish whilst I was in their presence.

Time to get the rigs out of the water. I wasn’t sure who was going to win it as I hadn’t spoke with everybody, I didn’t know who’s partner was whose and most people seemed to be getting a few.

At the start of the match, I decided on 10 peg sections and the qualifiers would go through by virtue of lowest points, 1 point for a win, 10 points for last in section and 11 points for a DNW.

The overall result was as follows:

Individual:

Andy Geldart (Middy) 75-03. Cedar Lake peg 18. Feeding and fishing caster at 9m shallow. Andy told me after the match that he had got through 7 pints of casters.

Mark Calvert (Garbolino Elton) 72-04. Cedar Lake peg 62. Caster and worm across to the island.

Bert Poole (Oaks/Westpark) 71-12. Maple Lake peg 62.

Gary Jubb (Diawa Goldthorpe) 69-15. Cedar Lake peg 74.

Dave Topham (Sensas Wibsey) 64-10. Maple Lake peg 8.

Sam Morgan (Ackworth) 58-06. Cedar Lake peg 34.

After checking and double checking all the results and positions the winning pair and 2 further qualifiers were as follows:

Qualifying Pairs:

Gary Jubb & Derek Jackson (both Diawa Goldthorpe) 3 points - 126-11.

Ian Exley (Team Dons) & Kirk Grainger (Clay Lane) 3 Points - 102-13.

Lee Kerry (Maver Barnsley) & Andy Geldart (Middy) 3 points - 101-07.

After finally sorting out all of the pools (including all of the optionals), Lee Kerry and Andy Geldart shared out over £350 for today.