Matt Hall on for Fish O'Mania treble

Some anglers have a real affinity for certain match events and Matt Hall is one of those, the Nottingham angler winning the first Fish O’Mania qualifier of the year at Hayfield Lakes to make the July final and also earn a chance at an unprecedented hat-trick of titles.

The Sensas man has already won Fish O twice and is among an elite few to have made the final on a number of occasions, but just to get there alone is a real achievement. He had to see off a full house at the Doncaster water to win, taking a lowly 79-8-0 from peg 17 on the Adam’s Lakes.

The pellet waggler did the trick for Matt as he landed 15 carp, but there was very little in it with Gary Thompson taking 60-6-0 from peg 35 on the same lake to end up just a couple of fish off the pace.

Matt has already won at final venue Cudmore so knows what it takes to win the coveted Fish O’Mania title and the £30,000 top prize and there will doubtless be a fair few punters ready to have a few quid on him come the summer!

Also kicking off at the weekend was the UK’s richest event, the Maver Mega Match This and two qualifiers were fished at Mallory Park in Leicestershire and then back at Hayfield just 24 hours after the Fish O dust had settled.

Leicester man Ady Hull settled the Mallory match to win his place in September’s £50,000 final at Larford Lakes, after he bagged 174-14-0 of carp from the Uglies Pool on polefished pellet.

At Hayfield, Perry Stone was top dog and he will be out for a bit of revenge after just missing out to Chris Cameron in last year’s final.

Perry used his favourite pellet waggler approach after kicking off on the Method feeder from the Island Lake, catching carp to 8lb on 8mm pellet to weigh in 94-10-0 and relegate Leon Miller into second. He will now be hatching plans for Larford and aiming to go one better and bag match angling’s biggest prize!

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