An account of the Ladies National Championship, by Julie Abbott, which was fished this year at Holly Farm in Leicestershire. 

“After a couple of practice sessions I’d formed a rough plan and knew that in order to do well I needed to draw on Trotters Pool to be in with a chance of winning.   A nervous draw saw peg 11 on Trotters stick to my hand so I was more than happy.

I set up a pellet feeder for the island on a 10ft Drennan Series 7 Carp Feeder rod, a long pole line and top 2 margin lines either side.  All pole rigs were on 0.17mm rig line to pink bungee on a puller kit.

After 80 minutes I’d managed 7 carp on the feeder and after this line slowed I switched to the long pole with meat.  Despite fizzing in the peg I only managed 1 carp and 2 skimmers off this line and looking back I think I persevered with this line for too long, trying to force it to work as I had done in an earlier practice session when it eventually came good.

Switching between lines I managed another fish then with 2 hours to go I moved to one of the margin lines only to hook a roach on an 8mm cube of meat!  After re-feeding this side heavily with corn I switched to catmeat on the other line and immediately hooked and landed a decent carp.  Switching between the 2 margin lines for the remainder of the match I landed another 10 carp, all on cat meat on a size 14 Margin Carp hook, to finish with 31k 100g, an agonising 60g off 3rd and 660g off second.

The team result (which is decided on weight) saw my team, Starlets AS, finish as clear winners with over 114 kilos.  In addition to my 4th place we had individual 1st and 2nd as well so you could say it was a convincing victory!

For full details on the Drennan Barbless Margin Carp hooks as used by Julie, click here.