10 July, 2024 | Match & Coarse | Angler Blogs | News

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Leanne Wins 2024 Angling Trust Women’s National!

Method feeder and wafter tactics help Dynamite angler Leanne Knott scoop victory in the Angling Trust Women’s National and a place in the Fish’O Mania Final on July 27! Here’s how the day unfolded from Leanne’s point of view…

Leanne says…

Needless to say I’m still buzzing! It’s not quite sunk in yet.

I arrived at Marston Fields with my other half Tom and didn’t have to wait long for the draw.

I was last in the queue behind my England lady’s team mate Helen and mentioned to her that the peg I wanted would still be in the bag whether I drew first or last! We both laughed…

It was soon time to put my hand in the bag for the last remaining peg and I was very happy to see Elm 22 staring back at me.

Listening to all the talk in the queue for the draw, Elm was the lake to be on so I knew then I’d be in with a decent chance.

On getting to my peg my first thoughts were that it looked okay for a few bites so confidence was high. I had a nice feeder chuck to the island and clumps of reeds down both margins and hopes were high for a nice day’s fishing.

Soon I had my rigs set-up – a feeder for fishing tight to the island, a 12m pole line, 2+2 short line plus my edge lines.

At the all in I fed my 12m line with fishery micros and a few 4mm fishery pellets and my edge line with Dynamite F1 Sweet GB and XL Corn before starting on the feeder.

Around the feeder I’ve used fishery micros soaked in Monster Tiger Nut Re-Hydration Liquid with a banded Dynamite pink mini Washter.

The first couple of hours went really slow and I’ve had jstu two carp for about 8lb but nobody on my lake was really catching.

1pm came around though an I managed 4 more carp to boost my weight.

The wind had got up by this point and the rain was pouring down – it really didn’t feel like July at all!

I decided to come off the feeder to have a look on my pole lines and well, to cut a long story short I have not had a bite at all on any of them. Best just just stay on the feeder I figured.

3pm comes around and with 1 hour to go, the decision to persevere with the feeder has paid off as I had 10 carp in the net for about 45lb. The bites really slowed down but I was getting loads of liners so knew the fish were still in the area.

To try and convert some of these, I swapped from a Washter to a 6mm fishery pellet and sat on my hands until the tip has gone round and this accounted for 4 bigger carp.

4pm and the all-out soon came around and at his point I was very happy with my tally knowing I had a steady day on the feeder.

I knew I’d beaten everyone around me but Sophie Hill on the other side of the lake has had a few more fish than me so it was unclear whether I’d done enough or not.

As the scales slowly got round to everyone it soon became apparent that the lakes had fished really hard with some low weights recorded, so I thought I might be up there but just not had enough to win.

However, my first weigh on the scales went 15kg and the second went 16kg – giving me 31kg (70lb)! I genuinely didn’t think I had that much and at this point I was winning my lake.

Sophie then weighs in and records 21kg which made me feel a bit nervous knowing that I’d possibly won both my lake and the match!

Back at the clubhouse it was confirmed…I was the new Angling Trust Women’s National champion and the feeling was simply amazing. I had of course qualified for Fish’O as well.

Tom and I were both buzzing in the van on the way home and I still don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet.

Tom of course will be my bank runner at Fish’O and we now have a busy 3 weeks ahead of us to prepare for the biggest match I have ever fished!

-Leanne