A last gasp bite gets the result!

After spending four hours and fifty-five minutes blanking on Day Two of the River Wye Under 25s festival, a vicious drop-back bite resulted in a 3lb 9oz chub that secured Guru’s Will McCranor a silver medal position! We caught up with Will, who explained:

“I absolutely loved Day One of the festival, when I managed to win my section with 16lb 10oz of dace on the Belmont section. My tactics were pretty conventional, as I balled-in eight big balls of a heavy groundbait and soil mix, laced with dead maggots, casters and hemp at 13 metres. My rig was a 3g round bodied float, on durable 0.15mm N-Gauge, to an 0.12mm Pure Fluorocarbon hooklength, which I could ease through at a steady pace. The dace were chunky fish up to 8oz, and I caught steady all day, topping-up several times with more groundbait and particles.

“On the second day, things didn’t quite go to plan when I drew the Bartonsham stretch. I didn’t fancy the draw, and with five minutes to go, only two people in my section had caught anything! After trying to winkle out a minnow on pinkies down the edge, I decided to have a last gasp cast for glory on the maggot feeder across the other side of the river. When the tip shuddered and then dropped back, I couldn’t believe it! I was nervous playing the big fish, because I knew it was going to make all the difference to my result. Slipping the net under it was a relief to say the least! It was enough to give me third in the section, which meant I tied with Rory Jones on points to win the festival, but was pushed into second place on weight countback.

“Rory did superb to win, a big well done to him! It’s an event I’ll fish again. I loved the wild aspect of the fishing, and learned a lot too. Big thanks must go out to Pete Goulding who organised the event, and to Daiwa who supported it too! I might have to twist Matt Godfrey’s arm to see if we can go and shoot a feature on there for our website before the season is out!”

Results

Day 1 Belmont
1st Willian McCranor 16-10-0
2nd A Cranston 12-5-0

Day 1 Bartonsham
1st Rory Jones 39-3-0
2nd Tim Lindup 19-6-0

Day 2 Belmont
1st Matt Greening 32-8-0
2nd R Screves 17-8-0

Day 2 Bartonsham
1st Matt Grindle 16-5-0
2nd Leon Blundel 7-10-0

Overall
1st Rory Jones, 4pts (54-10-0)
2nd Will McCraner, 4pts (20-3-0)
3rd Matt Greening