After his second place in last week’s Stanjay Winter Series, Ian Young went one better by winning Round 2 with over 15lb of roach. Here’s the Drennan Oxford man’s report from another good day on the Fenland Drains.

The second round of the Stanjay Winter series was on Factory Bank at Ramsey.  I drew the other end peg this week, nearest to the town. Having been pestered by tiny fish last week I modified my rigs, setting up heavier 0.8g and 0.6g floats, both with No10 droppers and size 20 hooks to 0.08mm line. I also set up a 0.4g float with No11 droppers, a size 22 hook to 0.07mm bottom and a light 4×10 (0.15g) hemp rig.

Fishing was pretty simple, fishing pinkie over groundbait down the middle and pinging hemp to 9.5m. I caught straight away on the 0.8g rig for about an hour before I changed to the lighter 0.6g rig for the next hour.

When it really seemed to slow up I tried my hemp line. I caught three good roach and a silver bream in four put ins, then a pike swirled and the bites stopped.

Back on the pinkie swim and the fish had settled again. I continued catching quite well, only trying the hemp line now and then. Again, this produced one or two fish before the pike spooked them, so I concentrated on the pinkie line.

I eventually had to add a pole section to keep in touch with the fish and changed to my lightest 0.4g rig for the last 45 minutes to keep bites coming. I ended up with 153 fish, nearly all roach with a few silver bream and the odd rudd, perch, one dace and a little chub. This gave me 15lb 11oz for a match win.

The other weights were pretty good, too, with 12lb 5oz 2nd and 11lb 11oz was 3rd. The top seven place all had double figures and the rest were not far behind. What a venue. What a lot of mud!