The Sensas UK Final took place on 24th and 25th March on the Gloucester Canal. At the end of the two days of competition, the victory went to Team Sensas Starlets A, made up of Darran Bickerton, Sean Ashby, Steve Hemingray, Cameron Hughes and Mark Downes. We interviewed Mark to find out more about their team victory!
Mark Downes : “After two days practising, we quickly realised this was going to be a a very difficult competition. There were some good areas but also some very bad. With this in mind we decided to take a cautious approach on a few sectors. Our tactics were simple an inside line (5m to 7m ) depending upon the depth with just 2 balls of Ground bait {0.5L with 30ml pf joker ( 50% Gross G fine /Canal Fine Noire and 50% terre de somme (Noire and Natural). This was repeated at a line at around 11m but with 4 balls (1Litre) with 100 ml 0f joker.
We also cupped 4 balls with 100ml Joker ,Chopped worm and Dead Pinkies in a touch of TDR and grey leam. This was potted at 12,5 m for 2 reasons. Firstly the wind was erratic and could easily push your rig ”inside “ of your feed line and secondly you need the option of fishing past your feed, as we found a lot of fish were lying off the feed.
For what we considered the better sections we did exactly the same process but doubled up on initial feed.
Then it was a simple matter of fishing the inside till bites dried up, then going to your 11m line, and doing the same, finally going to the 12,5m line probably 1.5hrs into the match. If a line was responsive then re feeding with small balls and leaving for 15 minutes also worked.
All in all you had to rotate your lines, working out when or if to feed.
On the very hard sections we fares well with a 1, 1,2 2,3.3, over the 2 days which I feel won us the competition.
It was a great event one everyone enjoyed despite the poor fishing, and one everyone is looking forward to again next year, when hopefully it will fish a little better.
More informations on that video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9mlachi6Es
