Tyrone Hull has just qualified for Match Fishing magazine’s Drennan Knockout Cup Final. The up and coming Drennan Bordon angler tells you how he made it all the way to the prestigious four-man event.
A wet and windy day was in store for the semi final of the Drennan Knockout Cup at Lake John in Essex. I had been practicing in the run up to the match to try and suss the venue out, with some useful info from Andy Greggs and Chris Vandervleit. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer volume of fish in the place and the amount of bait required!
After a few Wednesday open matches that were a bit of a disaster, I finally got to grips with it on the final match. I fed a combination of worm, micro pellets and corn and alternated between a whole dendra worm and corn on the hook and caught well. I felt 90-100lb would be enough to qualify for the final and with this in mind I was confident come match day.
On the day I was pleased to draw peg 13 on the right-hand bank, which I felt gave me the best chance of qualifying. Tom Scholey was to my right on peg 14 where he was sat a metre or so further out from me, which I felt may give him a slight advantage.
The match started and I potted 12 balls at 10 metres, making sure they made plenty of noise when I dropped them from the cup. I then cast out a PVA ‘tea bag’ with hair-rigged double corn further out in the hope of an early ‘unit’.
It was a slow start for most anglers and about 40 minutes went by with only a small skimmer to show for my efforts. Then, Tom hooked a lump of on the pole of nearly 20lb! This prompted me to get on the pole line as I was afraid of wasting too much time.
Bites came almost immediately and it wasn’t long before I had to top up frequently to keep the larger skimmers coming. By the second hour I was really motoring and had about 35lb in the net, although tom had probably got 50lb At this stage! I felt I wasn’t going to catch him and looking around the lake nobody else was running away with it. I decided from this point on I would plod on until the end of the match with the odd look down the edge (which resulted in a welcome 9lb carp!) and hope I’d done enough.
At the weigh in I put 90lb on the scales, which I feared wasn’t enough on the day as two tons had come from my bank already! Tom to my right had 114lb which I knew would see him through. I packed up and chucked my gear in the van while the weigh in finished. To my astonishment the other bank had fared less well with a top weight of 88lb, although this was a very tight section. It left me in 3rd place and qualification to the next round!
Tom’s weight won the match. He fished a blinder! On reflection, I felt him catching so well motivated me and made me push myself to catch faster and make changes that ultimately improved my catch rate and helped me to qualify.
I now cannot wait for the two-day Drennan Knockout Cup Final at Docklow Pools!
Check out Match Fishing magazine for the full report from the semi final at Lake John.