THE GAME CHANGER
DRENNAN CUP
CATCHES OF THE WEEK
PHIL BUCKINGHAM – 18LB 8OZ BARBEL
2023 - 2024 SEASON
“I SPEND a fair bit of time fishing at Kings Weir on the River Lea. I know the place well, and although it’s a hard stretch, if you get a bite, there’s a chance it’ll be from something a bit special. That makes it all worthwhile.
“Recently, though, things had been exceptionally tricky. I’d been on a run of around 20 blanks! My usual approach is a maggot feeder, fished with a hooklink around 8ins long. I’ve had great success on this over the years, catching some very big barbel and chub. But recently it just hasn’t been right.
“Although I hadn’t caught anything for a while, I’d had indications, so I knew there were fish in the swim. I’d tried a range of things, including lengthening the hooklink, even shortening it, but wasn’t having any joy. I reckoned the fish were shying off the feeder and, with pressure on the stretch intensifying as the season came to an end, it was time for a change.
“My first port of call was to head to a swim where nobody else had been fishing. Here, there’s an undercut bank, so I opted for a tactic not seen so often these days – a drilled bullet. This allows you to trundle a bait under a snag and, in this swim, one of 1oz would nestle perfectly under the undercut.
“I lengthened my hooklink to 18ins – nothing crazy, as I didn’t want to foul-hook anything – and used a size 12 Drennan barbel hook, which I loaded with maggots. My thinking behind the longer hooklink was to add a bit of flexibility to the set-up, and give a more natural presentation.
“After putting a few droppers of maggots in, I slid a PVA bag up the hooklink and made my cast. Once darkness fell, I hooked what was clearly a big fish. It didn’t
