Help for Heroes - Sandhurst Lake

The Help for Heroes charity event this year was to be held at the renowned Sandhurst lake in Yateley.  This event is a very special event and we always manage raise a large amount of money for this great charity. In total there was to be 17 people competing this was to be 8 doubles teams and a single angler. The lake accommodates this volume of anglers perfect. Sandhurst is far from a easy venue that’s for sure. Generally when the lake is busy not many fish tends to come out. We was all due to meet around 9:30 for the draw. Now I hate draws as I tend to get a tad unlucky every time. I decided that my partner in the match would draw for us. We drew peg 2/3 which is known as the car park swims. These are great pegs generally but due to the severe weather we have had the weed was really bad in them swims. So bad that from number two swim we couldn’t locate any spots.

We both came with the same ideas of spombing out a mixture of Hinders Particles, Pellets and Mystic Plum Boilies. After some intense work we both settled on our spots. Myself opted to fish two rods on a single clean area and my partner Andrew Smith locating two different areas.By 1pm we had deposited around two kilo of the mixture over each spot. The rods all going out with satisfying drops with the weed beds. We both opted to fish Hinders Betalin and Plum Soaked Tigers on blow back rigs. After all the casting and spombing the lake fell silent and it wasn’t till 6am the following morning that the deadlock had been broken. The first fish of the match came to my right rod. At 15lb and ounces it gave us a early lead and first place. We knew this lead wouldn’t Last long and after only a hour we had lost the lead with a 34lb common falling to peg 10. After putting a few extra spombs over the spot at 10am I was away again this time a 19lber being the culprit. Once again we had taken the lead and went to the top of the leader board.

We could see several shows over peg 10 and knew we would need more to stay in first position. Our thoughts were found to be correct. Peg ten went on to land two decent fish and catapult over forty pounds into the lead. With no fish showing at our end we went into the last night worrying that we may not even get another chance. As we went to bed we could hear a few fish showing not far from our rods and hoping during the hours of darkness something may happen. At 3am I was dragged from my bed by a screaming delkim. It was a ferocious take and instantly knew this was no small fish. After what seemed an age a decent mirror of 30lb 2oz slipped over the cord. Once again we only needed the one fish to take the lead yet again. The rod was re cast with 4 small spombs of bait over the top. We prayed we would get one more chance in the remaining five hours. First light came and with it the fish disappeared from in front of us. Once again peg 12 managed another this time a low twenty. We needed a fish of 35+ at this point. It simply wasn’t to be and we managed to finish in second place.

We would like to say a massive thanks to Tom Webb the organiser of this great event. He worked extremely hard the whole weekend and deserves a well earned break by the end of it all.

Congratulations to first place very well deserved.

Craig Runham