BCAC Semi-final... The Report

This entry was posted on 24th July, 2014

BCAC Semi-final... The Report

As you may or may not already know last weekend saw our very own Steve Crowe and his fishing partner Paul Stevens fish the BCAC (British Carp Angling Champs) semi-final, at the famous Barston Complex. In the 48 hour event the pair put in a truly memorable angling performance which saw them clinch there place in the final. We have an exclusive blog report from the duo and get down to the nitty gritty of what exactly happend, so without further adue, I'll let them take it away...

As I sit here looking back over our recent semi finals at the famous Barston Lakes in the Midlands, I simply cannot believe how well our plan paid off. We won our section in style, in fact we think it might have been all over by midnight on the Friday….. we were so far ahead within 12hours of the match starting that the rest was a bit of a blur.

It all started on Thursday when myself and Stephen “Widget” Crowe sat down eating our good luck fry up before departing Norwich for the drive to Barston Lakes for what turned out to be one of the busiest 48 hours fishing of my life.  So with our bellies full it was time for the 3 hour drive, which actually turned out to be nearly 5 hours due to the now obligatory road works dotted up and down the country. With the drive done with no dilemmas, well that’s a lie as after only 30minutes in the car my oil light came on!!!! With a panic in my voice I mentioned it to Stephen, and we both thought and said “typical” so with this in mind we pulled over at the next available garage to top up the oil which sorted the issue. Phew.

After the little oil issue it was plan sailing and before we knew it we were turning in to the complex known as Barston Lakes. This is the first time I have seen this lake, and was amazed with how well run it looked, with stunning grounds surrounding the lake and a very good club house serving some great food and the all important cold beer. So once we had got our heads together it was time for a beer and a walk round this great lake.  We had to make our peg choices on Thursday as the draw was at 7am Friday morning so we had to do lots of talking and deciding where we thought we stood the best chance.

We had enough bait with us to fish the flyer pegs where weights can get around 700lb and was supplied to us by Angling Direct in conjunction with Nash. The new bait they kindly gave us is called Tangee Terror and is made exclusively for Angling Direct by Gary Bayes at Nash Bait, and was certainly the key to our success. This bait has a lovely fishy and citrus smell to it making very good instant bait, perfect for commercial fisheries such as where we were fishing. It is packed with Shellfish Sense Appeal and Tangerine Oil Palatant all great proven attractors, along with a few little touches and tweaks to make an awesome bait combination.

So with our long list of peg choices done it was time to chill and get our heads down ready for the match on Friday.

Friday morning came round very quickly and it was time for the draw to take place. With everyone in the main bar waiting for the draw, the tension was high and with the first name drawn, we looked around to see who it was and couldn’t believe it, it was us….. it took Stephen and myself a few seconds to realise that we had come out first in the draw. We looked at each other with disbelief and both agreed that peg D4 was the one. Now this peg has got a huge reputation of huge weights and has qualified the last 6 years, so the pressure was certainly on.



 

The draw was finally done it was now time to barrow all the tackle and bait to our swim, which believe me was no easy feat. So after several trips back and forth to the car we were set. Just the rods to set up and things were looking good as we had so many fish in front of us, it just had to happen.

The horn was blown at 9am and it started, out went the rigs and a few boilies followed. We only had to wait a short time when we received a screamer on the zig rod. Now all the rods were switched to zigs all set at the depth of the first run and it just simply went mad, fish after fish after fish came to this method and we soon found ourselves building a very big weight.

We were soon building such a lead that it was looking like we might already prove to be uncatchable. With all these fish in front of us it was very important to keep the bait going in so we were soon building a very good looking swim and the carp just kept munching this great bait. The day soon went past and the scores were looking really good, I believe we were on about 700lb by 8pm this was going well. So with the hours of darkness just round the corner we made a decision to fish on the bottom as our swim simply looked like a Jacuzzi, we had a strip of about 30 yards in front of us that was covered in fish feeding hard on the bottom.



 

The bottom rods were sent out to the same spot as we had been feeding with the Tangee Terror along with about 2 kilos per rod and as I was sticking my bait out I received my first take off the bottom, wow what a start to the night fishing. This is how the rest of the evening panned out with us building a huge weight that surely couldn’t be beaten. We had now got through about 40 kilo’s of the Tangee Terror which were turning out be a very good bait. I spend a lot of my personal fishing targeting carp and have never used this new bait, but believe me from now on this will take prime spot in my armoury.

Morning soon came round and we were feeling very tired but very excited of our lead was massive. Back went out the zigs for what we hoped was going to be the same as yesterday and it only took 20 minutes to get a take and again the carp just kept coming, take after take they just kept coming. These baits were really turning the fish on and the noise of the baits constantly going in was drawing more and more fish in to the swim. Would this ever stop we asked each and by 6pm on the Saturday, things started to slow down a little with us only getting takes every hour and with this in mind we had to make some changes as we had set our sights on beating the lake record which stood at 1238lb’s we were on 1098lb’s at 6pm so we had 15 hours to get 149lb’s could we do it???? Well we were going to give it our best shot.

Out went the bottom baits all fresh baits attached and followed by lots of the little Tangee Terrors. The takes were definately a lot slower on this night with us receiving takes again every hour, we both looked at each other and said “They had moved off us” so with this in mind it was time to change things and keep changing until we found what would work. We managed roughly 100lb’s of fish from 6pm to 9am on the Sunday morning which was short of the lake record by only 40lb……. we both had very mixed feelings that on one hand we were gutted that we didn’t break the lake record and on the other hand, we were overjoyed that we had qualified for the final!



 

So with the hooter going at 9am it was over and a huge relief for both Stephen and myself as we had now secured a place in the Final which is being held at Wraysbury North lake in September.

So to conclude, we both had a great match, no sleep, and managed to get through 100 kilo’s of Tangee Terror all thanks go to Angling Direct and Nash Bait; and hope we have done you proud and not to forget Stephen’s Dad for he was our runner and we would not of been able to do this well without his input. So a massive thanks to Chris (Steve’s dad) and especially Angling Direct and Matt and the team at Nash Bait for sponsoring us with the Tangee Terror which has just turned out to be my go-to bait for my personal fishing.

Hopefully we both do just as well at Wraysbury!

Thanks

Paul Stevens & Stephen ‘Widget’ Crowe