Drennan Barnsley secured a convincing team win on an ultra-tough River Soar.

The in-form team now have yet another piece of silverware to add to their portfolio in the shape of the Sensas Challenge trophy. This year’s event saw 26 teams of five enduring a gruelling venue in Leicestershire that saw scores of dry nets and single fish weighed in over the two days.

With the fish shoaling up tightly, getting all five team members to catch was a real feat. Barnsley managed to do that on Day One with a runaway 9-point score and only suffered one dry net on Day Two. This was enough for victory in a competition that saw plenty of international stars involved.

The experienced team of Alan Scotthorne, Lee Kerry, James Dent, Matt Godfrey and Simon Fields now qualify for the prestigious Sensas Challenge Final at Châteaudun in France in October, along with the top six teams overall.

“We had a loose plan around feeding a very small amount of joker in groundbait at 13 metres at the start, along with a short-pole swim with worms,” Alan Scotthorne explained. “We fed mostly soil at 13 metres with just a bit of groundbait for attraction. If this didn’t work, we would then introduce some finely chopped worms in soil over the top to try and draw a perch or a gudgeon into the swim.

This worked for me in a really poor area as I managed three tiny perch from a peg that hadn’t produced a fish in three days! I ended up using a 3g flat float set six inches overdepth with a single bloodworm on a size 22 Kamasan B590 hook. That was enough for mega points and 5th in section.”

Drennan Barnsley had double cause to celebrate as Matt Godfrey once again showed his class to take the individual crown with a maximum two-point score, just ahead on weight over Matrix Trentman’s Kayleigh Smith.