Lakes Rover Comp 2018

Back in the warmer months I managed to get a few days off work and head over to the UK’s lovely Lake District (Cumbria) to fish the first annual Lakes Rover Kayak Competition. Like a lot of the UK’s freshwater kayak comps (there aren’t a lot to be honest!) it was run as a grand slam. The aim is to catch Pike, Perch and any third species. Two of your largest Pike would be counted including your three largest Perch and two largest third species.
Pike and Perch are obviously the main target but what about the third species? My aim for the third species would be Roach, they don’t go huge but once found they are easy enough to catch and I figured they would be the easiest way for me to make sure I got ‘The Slam’.

Now it was a matter of deciding venues, idea of the lakes rover is that you can pretty much fish any lakes but there is plenty of choice in the Lake District (the clue is in the name!). I decided on two lakes I know relatively well, a plan was in place so just had to see if it would work out!

Day one, first venue of the choice and it’s flat calm still morning with lovely mist rolling off the lake. Beautiful! Plan was to get the Pike out the way first then go from there. Only been fishing 15mins and had one in the net, measured in at 80cm+ so a good start 🙂 I lost a few other fish but no others graced the net. Change of venue and target, the Perch. This one was very easy, Perch in the Lakes are easy to catch once found. They were coming in thick and fast, nothing huge but I had my three I required (plus many more) so was happy there.

The third species were the difficult one, had to wait until the very end of day one to finally catch some. They were tiny at 10cm! but all count. Those plus the extra Pike I caught in the afternoon meant I had ‘The Slam’, pressure was off. This left me on day two of the much nicer task of trying to catch bigger if each species.

Roach were the main target come Sunday morning, luckily for me the first two fish caught were larger Roach, again small but at 20cm+ each it as the improvement I needed. I did improve on the Perch as well, not massively but three Perch all at 37cm would have to do. Those added to the Pike meant I had done enough to win! Very happy with that, really enjoyed this competition and very much looking forward to next year 🙂