Essex Air Ambulance Adult 24 Hour Carp Match 2016 - Blunts Mere 

The 1st Qualifying Carp Match was held at the weekend on Blunts Mere. Expectations were high for good weights to be caught and as over 350lbs of fish were caught last year, competitors knew they had to fish well this year to qualify to the final on Wick Mere.

Once the draw had taken place, and with their barrows loaded off they went to their allocated swims and then waited for the off at 12 noon.

Team MnM, Mark Jones and Mitch Branton on match peg 9 ( peg 14 during the season ) started catching straight away on the pellet waggler, keeping Ian Reynolds busy for the first few hours with fish in the 8-12lb bracket. Fish were coming out at regular intervals up and down the lake although due to the hot conditions those fishing hard on the bottom didn't seem to catch as well as those fishing up in the water. I took over gillie duties from Ian Reynolds on pegs 9-10 and started weighing fish straight away and by midnight had weighed in just over 200lb on match peg 9 alone, unfortunately next door, on match peg 10, had only managed 1 fish. I did however get woken up at about 1am to weigh a fish in peg 10 of around the 14lb mark. I could hear a few alarms going off around the lake during the night but match peg 9 was thankfully quiet so managed a few hours sleep. It came back to life around first light at 4-30 am with the lads back on the pellet waggler with fish caught at rate of 1 fish every 10-15 minutes so no more sleep for me lol. By early morning reports started coming through of weights between 50-100lb and so 2nd down to 5th place was still up for grabs but by now Team MnM were past 350lb. A couple of teams decided they had enough and so called it a day. Mid morning and still the fish came to Mitch and Mark , 450lb come and went by quickly and although Pasty Power on match peg 8 were catching steadily as were Specimen Carp Boys 2 on match peg 7 it was never going to be enough. With 30 minutes left Team MnM were on about 560lb and 600lb looked on the cards, a big fish was hooked, played but lost and with the minutes ticking down only 4lb was required for the magical 600lb barrier. Every effort was made but alas on the final whistle it was to no avail. Absolute top fishing and teamwork by them both.       

Result: 

Biggest fish was 16lb 11ozs to the Lads at MnM

I would like to thank the following people for making the event possible and helping out on the day

Paul Bocking  Events Chairman, photographer and co-ordinating prizes

Ian Reynolds for running the event on the day and fish weighing duties

Lee Goodchild  for helping to organise the event

Barry Davis for P.R and helping co-ordinate prizes and photographer

And with out the help of the Bailiffs who gave up their time to weigh fish in at all times of the day and night the event could not operate

Spencer Plair, Ken Saffill, Gareth Spary and Dave Taylor

A Massive thanks to you all

Finally I would like to thank our co-sponsors DT Baits and Mr Adrian Shaw of Specimen Angling who arranged the prizes from various tackle companies for the raffle, including

ESP, Ridge Monkey, Cotswold, Korda, Shimano, Bait Company and Reuben Heaton.

On behalf of Chelmsford Angling Association I would like to thank you all for you generosity and £300 was raised from the raffle alone.

There will be other raffles at Braxted Res, Tufnell Mere ( junior carp match ) and the Final at Wick Mere and any member is welcome to come along and buy tickets at the event

Next stop Braxted Resevoir for the 2nd qualifier and I hope its as successful as this one was and if anyone could spare a few hours helping out on the day it would be a massive help,

Thank you

Ian Stokes
Chairman  Chelmsford Angling Association