Sam Brown Wins 2026 Golden Rod Final!

2 perfect points across both days hands Maver and Dynamite-backed ace victory and the cool £15,000 paycheque that comes with it!

MAVER and Dynamite Baits-backed match angler Sam Brown has just added an amazing £15,000 to his career match winnings following an excellent display of angling on a tough Larford Lakes for the Golden Rod Final.

With bites hard to come by for some of the best anglers in the business over both days, it was clear from the off that the final would be no easy contest but Sam stuck to his gameplan to pull off a triumphant win with 2 perfect points.

Here’s the man himself giving the low-down on how his Golden Rod campaign panned out plus his reaction to adding another big event win to his growing collection:

Sam Says:

“On Day 1 I’ve drawn peg 42 on the Match Lake.

It’s an end peg in the corner near the cafe end of the lake so a brilliant draw as it’s had great winter form.

With the lake fishing very moody, I knew id only need around 40lb to win, and as it’s the narrow end of the lake you only really have a short line and edge attack. So to keep things simple I’ve based it around the edge.

It wasn’t easy by any means and I’ve had my first bite at 2pm! But after this I then managed 5 carp out the edge on maggots and Dynamite Baits Betaine Green Swim Stim Feeder Groundbait on the method.

The last bite was with 2 minutes to go which just took the section win by 4lb – so a vital fish in the end.

Sam’s Day 1 catch was enough to take the section

For Day 2 I wanted a draw on the burr bank on the middle section of the Speci Lake as its the fairest section with no end pegs to compete with.

So the rules state that because I had an end peg on day 1, I wasn’t allowed to draw an end peg on day 2 so this section was the best choice and luckily I got it with peg 17.

I didn’t have it easy at all as I drew next to feeder expert Alex Walker who was also fighting for the win.

I expected 3 carp to win the zone or 30lb so the day started well when I had an early carp after the first hour mark on the method with fishery micros and a Dynamite Baits Hi-Bridz Wowser.

This was winning the zone for a couple of hours, but after around 2pm more carp were caught on the other bank of my section so I dropped down to around 4th in the section.

Last hour I needed a visit from some big carp short or edges.

With just under an hour left I saw a carp move along the margin so went straight down there.

It took about 15 minutes for my first pull but after that I managed four Larford lumps out the margin on a meat and groundbait feeder approach, one of which was 20lb plus!

Meanwhile, Alex next to me also caught five out the edge so we knew it would be close come the weigh in

Thankfully, my five carp went 77lb to Alex’s 74lb so luckily id just snuck the section win again! It was a great next peg battle though with a top feeder angler.

All in all I fed about 1 tin of meat and 1kg of Dynamite Betaine Green Swim Stim Feeder Groundbait to keep the bites coming.

Some big carp helped Sam to victory on Day 2!

Needless to say I’m super made up with the win as I’ve wanted to win this one for years as its the main event I focus my time on over the winter period now with some of the best feeder anglers in the country having their names on the trophy.

For sure some of the money will go towards taking the Mrs and my little girl on her first holiday this year!”

Well done Sam and a massive congratulations from everyone at Team Dynamite!