RN & RM AA Carp Championships 2007

18 Sailors and Royal Marines pitted their angling skills against the residents of Sapphire Lakes nr Newark in the recent inaugural RN & RM AA Carp Championships. The second match of the year saw representatives from the Fleet Air Arm, Devonport, Portsmouth and RM compete for the inaugural title. The warm and still conditions were not ideal for Carp Angling on a lake that was known to be less productive when heavily pressured but some excellent angling managed to produce a great competition.

Following some careful pegging and the subsequent draw, the 48-hour match started at midday Friday. It got off to a comparatively slow start. Several Bream were landed but the first Carp to grace the bank was a 17lb Common. It came to Cpl Matt Harding of RM Band Dartmouth but not until the small hours of Saturday morning. It required some wading to free it from its snagged position deep in a reed bed but it took the lead which was to remain intact for most of the weekend and eventually saw Matt take the Hinders bait prize for first fish, the Dynamite Bait package for biggest fish of the weekend and a spod rod donated by The Tackle Barn in Plymouth for 2nd place overall.

Next to land a fish was Sgt Billy Faragher of CTCRM with another common of 16lb later that morning. The third Carp before lunchtime on Saturday was a smaller 11lb 4oz Common to Sgt Del Bauduin RM giving a Royal Marines clean sweep at the halfway stage.

The RN made its first appearance on the leader board courtesy of LAET Si Fisher of RNAS Yeovilton with the only Mirror Carp of the weekend. It sent the scales to 13lb 15oz after a titanic struggle that saw the fish get into some thick reed beds at least twice before it was netted. This was the eventual 3rd place weight earning Si another spod rod, this time from Atlantic Fishing Tackle of Helston.

Saturday night only produced more Bream but with an hour and a half of the match remaining Billy Faragher teased another 15lb 10oz Common from a weed bed to take the title with a total weight for his 2 fish of 31lb 10oz. His second fish earned him the trophy, a weeks fishing at the prolific Edens Lakes complex in France and a bait package from Clives Tackle of Plymouth. It also got him and his partner Sgt Jack Broughton a bedchair cover each donated by Trakker as the best pair. NA(SE) Callum Watkins won a Carpioleads selection pack for “moment of the weekend” after he quite vocally announced to the whole lake that he had lost a good fish!

More information is available via the RNRMAA website and forum at www.rnandrmaa.org.uk