CALVIN Lemon (below & right) had a courteous lady boat skipper to thank for helping him land a 5.550kg carp on his way to £1,916 and a runaway win in the Individual event at the Embassy Division Five National Angling Championship on the Shropshire Union Canal on Saturday May 31st.

And, on a hot and humid day, West Midlands aces, Team Mosella Strike (below), made it third time lucky when they captured the coveted Team title with 227 points.
It was the first time that a National Championship had been staged before the "Traditional" June 16 start to the season. And, with the National Federation of Anglers restructuring the National Championships to four Divisions next season, the top 18 teams have been promoted straight to Division Three with the next eight teams taking their place in Division Four.

Lemon, a 45-year-old from Exeter who sells car parts for a living, was pegged on K26 at Hinstock Bridge and weighed in an excellent mixed bag of 12.390kg - more than 6kg ahead of his nearest rival. He picked up £646 in pools money and £1,270 after a £10 each way bet with angling bookie, Billy Knott.

The're not all bad!
"I had already lost a carp when I hooked another one with about two hours to go. A boat was coming along but I managed to bully the carp away from the bushes on the far bank," said Lemon who fishes for Exeter & District AA, "The carp made a dive underneath the boat and the lady skipper immediately stopped the engines while I played the fish. I kept the pole low and just hung on and hoped and after about 15 minutes I managed to get the carp into the net. I was very grateful she stopped the engine - it really did help me land the carp."
Lemon, fishing in two and a half feet of water at 13+ metres with a single caster on a size 18 hook tied direct to 5lb line and a No.14 elastic, then lost another big carp from a peg which won a pre-National Open the previous week. He fed chopped worm and caster.
Lemon, whose previous biggest pay day was just £200, admits he is "not really a canal angler" and is more at home on the commercial fisheries in the South West. But that didn't stop him producing a superb display, landing a chub first cast and going on to take four more chub to 1.13kg and a couple of bonus bream to 0.7kg. And there was more good news as he has just collected some personal sponsorship from Van Den Eynde. "I was really pleased at how I fished the match especially as I would have won the match even if I hadn't caught the carp. I have been match fishing for 20 years and this is easily my biggest victory," added a delighted Lemon.

Rip van Winkle's out Last Gasp Carp!
Second place and £848 in bets and Pools money went to Danny Keenan, a 28-year-old asphalter from Rochdale who was pegged at M8 in the Hodnet Trees at Goldstone and, fishing in his first-ever National Championship, weighed in 6.300kg. And Keenan, who fishes for Whitworth Valley AS, clinched the runners-up spot when he hooked a near 6kg carp - as he almost nodded off to sleep with 20 minutes to go!
"I had caught two small bream and some perch and gudgeon and decided to go for a carp with worm on a size 16 hook to 5lb line and a No.12 elastic. I'd had a few drinks in the nearby pub the night before and, as I hadn't been catching much, I started to nod off when the carp suddenly came along," said Keenan whose previous biggest pay day was £100.

Above: LAST GASP CARP - Danny Keenan with the carp of 6.300kg that he caught in the last 20 minutes of the match which earned him second place (left).

Below: AND IN THIRD PLACE - Lee Chatfield with his carp of 5.960kg from Peg K19.

There's another one for Sussex skippy!
There was also a big carp of 5.900kg for third-placed Lee Chatfield (above), a 26-year-old water board worker from Burgess Hill, West Sussex, who was seven pegs away from the winner at K19 and weighed in a total of 5.960kg to collect £735. Chatfield, the skipper of Sussex County who came sixth in the Team event, took the carp after an hour on a double worm and caster cocktail on a size 12 hook to 7lb line and a No.14 elastic.

He said: "As soon as I got to my peg, carp were moving all over the far bank. I caught four small fish early on but they were being pushed out by the carp and I decided to go for the carp. We had a team target of 1kg a man so once I had this big carp in the net, I could keep after them and hope to land another one." Unfortunately, he did lose a couple of bigger carp which could have given him the title and he had to settle for third place.

Local Hero
Local angler Brian Pugh (Hodnet Match Group) landed two chub, bream and roach to take £674 and fourth place by winning E Section with 4.280kg while David Collinson (Tang Hall Match Group) was £355 better off after coming fifth overall with a bream and gudgeon net of 4.050kg to come top in H Section. In sixth place was Paul Illingworth (Thorne & District AA) who landed five bream to take J Section with 3.780kg - he picked up £297.

Third time lucky
In the Team event, Team Mosella Strike, based in and around Oldbury in the West Midlands, were celebrating after their third attempt to move out of Division Five ended with a gold medal success. They collected £756 from the Team Pools.
And that meant a third National Team gold for skipper Dean Stewart, a 33-year-old builder from Willenhall, West Midlands, after he had twice tasted Team glory with Foster's Tipton Van Den Eynde in Division Five and Division Four in 2000 and 2001.
A cock-a-hoop Stewart said: "It was a brilliant team performance - we are absolutely delighted. We went up a few times to practise and, after the match the previous week, we knew it was going to be hard in some areas. If we had floating weed in our peg, then we looked for bonus fish but we just had to be patient and it paid off in the end. We all looked for 2 to 2+ feet of water in and around the far shelf.
"Mosella and Strike Angling have been very good to us and Ian Burgoyne got the groundbait mix just right by adding some black dye. We had a few beers after the match but we will set up a proper celebration evening in the next couple of weeks."
Stewart, after many successful years at Tipton Van Den Eynde, decided to devote more time to his family and joined his dad, Barry, at Team Mosella Strike. He took over from Barry as their Canal captain at the end of last year and now they have added this superb National win to their recent victory in a local League. Skipper Stewart won A Section with 2.260kg while Cannock's Jeff Jarvis finished an impressive seventh overall when he came second in E Section with 3.530kg - a catch of five chub that he landed in the first 10 minutes!

Gracious in defeat
The silver medals in the Team competition with 222 points went to Sensas Team Image (below), a team based in Essex and London who were fishing their first National.
Skipper Graham Dack, a 40-year-old cab driver from Collier Row, Romford, said: "We had a couple of bad pegs but we were pleased with finishing runners-up and good luck to the winners - they deserved the title. We fished squatts and pinkies for small fish and chopped worm and caster on the good pegs for the bonus bream and chub. All the squad did their job but I would like to give a special mention to Harlow's Will Reynolds - he's only 17 and fished well." They won £540.

With a little help from their friend
Devizes AA (below) grabbed third place and £432 with a 219 point tally and they were full of praise for Mark Shepherd who fishes for Dick Clegg's Lifestyle Van Eynde who supplied them with a 20 page peg-by-peg dossier of the National venue.
"Mark provided us with just the information we needed - it was really accurate and helped us so much as we didn't have hardly any time to come up and practise. We owe Mark a big 'Thank You' and I know we wouldn't have done as well without all his expert knowledge," said Devizes skipper Kevin Abigail, a 35-year-old from Westbury, Wilts, who sells spare parts for Alfa Romeo cars.
Abigail did come up for the pre-National Open last week and finished second while in the National he collected 22 points by coming fifth in B Section with 0.970kg. And there was a fine eighth place in the Individual for Devizes' Ken Rowles when he weighed in 3.500kg in coming third in E Section.

Above: PRETTY AS A PICTURE - the Hodnet boats section at Goldstone in M Section.

Below: Dave Johnson (no not me!) who came second in M Section with a weight of 2.360kg. His team, Devizes AA, came third overall.

back to contents