Dave Roberts, an automotive engineer from Hereford, was delighted to eventually secure his place in this years PartyPoker.com Fish 'O' Mania Final after pretty much leading the way throughout the five hours of competition, held at Cudmore Fisheries on 17th June, bringing 59lbs 2oz of carp to 6lbs to the scales.
The combination of a massive overnight drop in air pressure, heavy rainfall and the final throes of the spawning period put paid to the big weights everyone was anticipating on this usually prolific venue. It left many anglers in some areas literally fishing for bites. That said the final result produced an extremely tight finish with less than 7lbs separating the top five anglers and, with the exception of one pool, 35lbs was the lowest section winning weight clearly demonstrating what “might have been” had things been different.
The Arena Pool wasn't fished this time as it is the venue for the Grand Final on July 18th. Tara Pool was therefore used for the first time housing two sections. Many of the anglers were tipping it to produce the winner even though it not normally match-fished and how right they were. The eventual winner, Dave, pretty much led the way throughout the five hours bringing 59lbs 2oz of carp to 6lbs to the scales from peg 3. All his fish fell to paste fished on the long pole. After the results Dave said he was really excited about reaching the final after trying so many times.
Runner up, Wayne Rooke who was 9 pegs away from Dave, weighed 58lbs 4ozs of carp to 5lbs taken shallow on the pole and pellet waggler.
Third place was shared between Terry Naulls from East Yorkshire and Robert Cooksey from Dudley with a weight of 52lbs 10ozs. Terry, a member of the England squad for anglers with disabilities annihilated New Pool 1 and Robert was top weight on New Pool 4, just beating Phil Ringer who weighed 52lbs 8ozs.
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