By Jake Marshall | No Comments
Last updated: Monday, July 7, 2008

Okay, so I haven’t been on here for a while and I’m sorry for the delay. But if I’m honest, I’ve had my exams, my eagerly awaited England trials and I’ve also been working so I can get some coin together and buy some new gear!!For these reasons I’m going to keep this blog nice and short so don’t be expecting a too detailed account of my most recent adventures. Too be honest i can’t complain too much about my fishing recently so expect some good results!

Background Information

The London Youth Games is an event run every year for children under the age of 18 to compete at pretty much every sport! There are two rounds in the fishing, one qualifier and a final held at Crystal Palace club owned lake which is pretty close to home (this event is done on weight and not points!) Many well known anglers fished this event, like Richard Taylor, John Smith and Robbie Taylor. Not to forget my dad Adrian and his brother (my uncle) Darran. Most people will know that the Croydon side who i fish for is run by Dave Harper and this year we had been drawn at Brook Farm fishery. Not a very well known place, but from the information we got hold of we were looking at forty to fifty pound to win as a team.

The Match

An advantage of this match is that you can place anglers, therefore putting the best anglers on the best pegs being the obvious option. Now I must be honest, this event is well out of my league and me and my brother should not really be fishing it, but Dave is a man we have known for years and Croydon always struggle for a team so we agree to fish.Looking at our draw we hadn’t drawn too badly, I settled for the peg on the point of the island, whereas my brother and Tom (the third and final team member) went on the two pegs out of the wind. I decided to fish the method to the island and ping long to possibly catch shallow. So at the start I lobbed the method and was immediately into bites, catching one a chuck. Due to the owners wishes we had to stop and weigh in half way through, so in the first half I ended up with 27 fish, for 58 lb all caught on the method. Awesome I thought, I’m gonna tonne up! My brother weighed in thirty pound all caught short at five metres and Tom weighed 25lb mostly down the edge.

The second half saw me chuck the method and not have a bite. So I switched to fishing shallow long like the kid opposite me, I was rewarded with a couple of missed bites then I was into fish, soon I was bagging so I stepped up to a black hydro and was really pumping the fish in. My brother was also catching but not as well as me, although he had caught steady from the start of the second session whereas it took me nearly 45 minutes to catch! I managed to catch by feeding very little and tapping the pole a lot, however when i did feed they were hard 4mm pellets and I was fishing a banded 6mm on the hook.

The Result

So at the end of the second session I weighed in 71 lb to give me a grand total of 129 lb which consisted of around fifty carp. My brother had a total of 75 and tom had 56, this gave us a grand total of 260lb and was enough to double second team’s weight. I was first overall, my brother was second Tom was third, not only that, but I beat my personal best weight, beat the venues five hour match record and my weight was also the biggest ever recorded in the London Youth Games, and will arguably never be beaten according to some people. So all in all not a bad day really! So roll on the final where we catch 15lb plus carp off the surface and 3-6lb bream on chopped worms!!

I’d like to say thanks to the fishery owner for letting us use the venue and must say what a brilliant place it is! Visit www.brookfarmfishery.co.uk to find out more information, or to see the pictures of our catches in the ‘Hall of Fame’