Mainline Carpers Win Forces Carp Classic! 3rd November, 2012

Les Etangs de l'Abbaye hosted the Forces Carp Classic at the end of October. The 135 hour enduro event was open to all military personnel, as well as the Emergency Services and the Territorial Army. Four lakes on the Abbey complex were utilised; Atilla, Fox, Heron and Kingfisher, with match restrictions in place. 

Mainline RAF Carpers, Carl Hoyle and Glenn Beardsall made the trip for the first time and drew the un-fancied Kingfisher Lake; a lake normally famed for its catfish. However, in recent months it has thrown up some excellent carp hauls and the RAF lads hoped to put their van full of Mainline Cell and New Grange boilies to good use. 

The lakes on the Abbey complex react very differently to baiting tactics, so with little information on Kingfisher’s moods, the lads left their spods in the bag and adopted for an all-out boilie approach, feeding clear areas in the weed little and often with the catapult and throwing stick. The stealthy approach paid off handsomely and very early on, with Carl taking mirrors of 34lb and 43lbs in the first few hours. Baiting up with 50 baits after every fish, allowed Carl to catch consistently throughout the first 3 days of the competition and following a tactical move to bring Glenn closer to the action, he too began to catch with great regularity, utilising the same little and often boilie tactic. By the midway point, the Mainline boys were just a few pounds off the leaders who were fishing the prolific Atilla Lake.

The 5 hour interval not only helped revive two tired carpers, who had managed only a few hours sleep over the first half of the contest but with no lines in the water and substantial baiting prior to the break, the carp moved in confidently. The chaps returned to their swim with a spring in their step, hoping for a repeat performance of the first few days. The rods had been clipped up before hand and they were fishing within minutes. Carl set his bobbin and began to pult a few Cell boilies over his spot. As the first baits hit the water, his alarm burst into life and initially he thought the 18mm boilies had hit his line. This soon turned into a full scale, one toner and Carl was in again, resulting in another 43lb mirror, literally 5 minutes after casting out his Cell/Pineapple Juice combo. In a few minutes the rod was back on the spot and Carl just had enough time to finish his baiting up, before the same rod rattled off once again, resulting in a 34lb mirror. 

Glenn continued to feed a combination of New Grange and Cell boilies persistently over the next 48 hours, and his rods began to produce fish with great regularity, helping the Mainline pairing build a formidable lead over the rest of the competitors on the complex. Even the pairings on the prolific Atilla lake, were finding it difficult to live with the sheer number of 30lb fish, especially when Glenn topped off a run of smaller fish with mirrors of 36lb and 37lbs! Although Carl’s runs had slowed down, he continued to chip in with fish over 35lbs and during the last 24 hours of the event, landed the biggest fish taken from Kingfisher during the competition; a mirror of 46lbs 9ozs! To take the Fox/Mainline pairing over the 900lb barrier. Fittingly, Glenn finished proceedings with a 28lb mirror, to take their total to a record breaking 939lbs! Averaging 31lbs per fish, winning the competition by some distance over their closest rivals on Atilla.  No doubt Kingfisher will be much higher on everybody’s list next year!

For more information about the awesome Abbey Lakes and how to book a trip there, visit:  http://www.abbeylakes.co.uk/

Or call the Booking/Info Hotline +33 444 380 866

And for more details on this year's event and preliminary information on the 2013 event, visit http://forcescarpclassic.co.uk. The event organisers Russ Marsh and Tim Gray will be only too pleased to forward further details.