FEATURE LEE EDWARDS

Caerph i

Caerphilly Castle makes a stunning backdrop for our day with Lee Edwards.

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We travel to the homeland of Welsh international Lee Edwards, fresh from winning his World Individual bronze medal, to see what makes this rising match star tick.
Match Fishing: Congratulations on your individual bronze medal in Hungary this year, Lee! Before we talk about that, however, can you start at the beginning and tell us exactly how you got into match shing? Lee Edwards: I started here, actually, as the local Caerphilly And District AS club ran matches for juniors on this lake. I had a gang of mates, and we would all fish here. My dad used to fish a bit, mainly sea fishing when the cod came in, but he didnt ever take me out. To get me out from under his feet he bought me one of those crappy little 6ft rods and I managed to catch a little perch on 6lb line. That was the start of my fishing!
Lee is as well versed with carp on commercials as he is with international methods.

ANGLER PROFILE
Name: Lee Edwards Age: 32 Occupation: Carpenter Sponsors: Preston Innovations and sonubaits. com, plus assistance from Shimano and Cralusso in internationals Teams: Shimano Team Wales, Preston Innovations Thatchers

VENUE PROFILE
Name: Caerphilly Castle Lakes Day tickets: Available from Tonys Tackle, Caerphilly. Tel: 02920 885409 Directions: The venue is easy to nd its right in Caerphilly town centre and well signposted from the A470

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FEATURE LEE EDWARDS

Later on the club had five trips a year to the River Wye as well, and I really enjoyed those. Some of them were senior events, but I still fished them and even won one when I was 15. That was with 35lb of dace on the waggler and I got an award in the weeklies for that. Fishing places like the Wye and taking a gallon of maggots was expensive for a young lad, but I knew I needed the bait to be able to compete I had to work a milk round to afford to fish matches. My Uncle Dave used to take me when he went to the Wye and Lugg, and he taught me that you needed to be aggressive with the feed to get past the bleak. When I was 14 I won the first of two back-to-back Welsh Junior Nationals, which helped get me an invite to the trials for the junior Welsh National team. I seemed to win most of the trials but never got asked to fish for the team. I felt you had to be a member of the Glamorgan squad to have a chance of getting picked. It was difficult travelling to those events because I was too young to drive and my Dad never took me, so I never really had a chance. MF Do you still see or sh with any of the people who shed those junior matches with you? LE Only a few, and they fish the local matches here at Caerphilly. I sometimes turn up to fish and get greeted with: Oh look, the moneys gone today! I went with a couple of them to Hillview

LEE EDWARDS TOP TIPS

01

Dipping your pot in the water helps pellets stick in and not bounce out when shipping.

02

After hooking, give expanders a quick squeeze underwater to ensure they sink.

03

Soaked Fin Perfect 2mm feed pellets, 4mm expanders, casters and corn.

04

Preston Chiantis for big sh and Classic 6s for silvers.

05

PR24 hooks work well for both silvers and carp.

06

Small balls of Fin Perfect groundbait and brown crumb feed the slider swim.

Lakes in Tewkesbury the other week and the banter ended up along the lines of: Weve all turned into men now, cause weve all got kids! Its good that they turn to me for help with their match fishing. I dont mind helping out if people ask and I think if I give people info on a venue I know well, others will hopefully do the same for me when I go to theirs. Sadly it doesnt always work like that! On some venues people really get the hump with anglers giving away the secrets. I dont mind anyone ringing me for advice, though. MF What kind of an angler would you call yourself? LE Im an all-rounder, quite positive when I know its right, if you know what I mean? If you know the method is right, youve got to stick with it.
Hopefully this is the rst of many medals!

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Lees worked hard to hone his waggler skills for international events.

I enjoy fishing the long pole for skimmers, but I also really like fishing the stick float and bolo on rivers. Fishing the slider is another method I enjoy and one that Ive always had to use. We fish the slider on Cardiff East Dock and Port Talbot Dock for skimmers and eels. Some of the anglers I fish with dont have any floats bigger than 2g, but Im comfortable fishing with plenty of weight down the line. Sometimes you need that weight for control and fishing the slider in those early days, and the trips to the Wye, helped me learn that lesson. MF Has being on the international circuit with Shimano Team Wales helped your shing? LE It was a real eye-opener watching the French and Belgians shipping their poles back they are so fast! Theres no doubt that the more time you spend in the water, the more you catch.

The most important part of the fishing this year was being accurate with the feeding. In Hungary, if you didnt land your feed within a metre of your float, you didnt get a bite it was as simple as that. Coming here to Caerphilly Castle gives me a chance to work on that, as you can catch skimmers and some big slabs on the slider at 40 metres, feeding fists of groundbait. If you can drop a ball on top of your float every time, you are going to get fish. MF What was the best part of being on the podium this year? LE Standing next to my hero, Alan Scotthorne, was one of the best bits. When I was younger, I read the papers every week to see how Alan had done at the weekend. I really thought he was the kind of angler I wanted to be. Now Ive had the chance to stand next to him and win a medal but Id like to win gold now!

My rst World Champs in 2005, in Finland, was good experience for Hungary this year.
Getting the preparation right is as much about being able to cope with the higher standard as it is about sorting out your gear. Working with experienced international team-mates Darren Frost and Andrew Spud Murphy has helped with that aspect. They gave me plenty of advice in the early days about the way the matches are fished and the parts of it that are different from matches at home. Tiny things like looking after bloodworm and joker are also important. You dont want to be fishing with poor-quality bait in such a high-pressure match, so having the right stuff to split your joker is just one valuable lesson Ive learnt. We use cork dust, by the way. From the start, Ive felt at home fishing international matches. Eric Humphries (Shimano Team Wales manager) asked me to fish because Id been getting in the papers for framing in loads of matches. His wife, Pam, actually told him he had to try me out! My first match was a Six Nations event, in France I think, and I beat the Belgian star next to me on both days. It just went on from there and I fished my first World Champs in 2005, on the second day, in Finland. That was actually good experience for Hungary this year, because it was hard fishing for roach and skimmers. It helped me realise that you need to really cut down the food value of the groundbait when its like that. Eric is convinced you should always feed some groundbait for skimmers, but Ive been doing really well just using double leam (damp leam and grey leam) and a tiny amount of joker. Ive had plenty of phone calls from some of the past Welsh masters since I got back from Hungary. Doug Hornblow rang to offer his congratulations; he is one of the nicest blokes in Welsh fishing. Also, Clive Roberts and Clive Branson have rung up. It is great to have my achievement recognised, but I only scraped in really. I lost a couple of skimmers on the second day and for a while I was suicidal. Any one of them would have got the team into the medals and could have got me silver. Now Ive had time to think about it clearly, however, I know that it was just my day. One of the skimmers I landed was just on when I picked up the rod and I was only 40g ahead of fourth place, so its swings and roundabouts, really, and you just have to accept that what will be will be.
If you can drop a ball on top of your oat every time, you are going to get sh.

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FEATURE LEE EDWARDS

Wow!

The Session

MF How much time do you spend on preparation? LE Every Friday and Saturday I spend all day in the garage sorting the gear and bait. I spend as long as it takes to get ready, because you dont want anything to go wrong. I wont go to a match on a Sunday without being ready for it. I dont like to turn up half-cocked. Before I travel to an international match, I spend a lot of time trying to get information. I have so much gear ready for every eventuality that I dont have a lot extra to do unless its a strange venue spool up new line on the reels and tie up a load of hooklengths and thats about it. To get the info, I talk to Eric or Bobby Smithers (from Ireland) I certainly dont get anything out of the English! Fortunately, the venues come round in cycles, so you always have some idea about a place. On Valence, we all knew how it had fished recently, because there was a European Championship there in 2004 and then there was a team match just a couple of months before the World Champs. I was looking forward to it because Darren Frost had told me it would be right up my street; bagging skimmers on the long pole. MF Was it a surprise that it was actually dominated by rod-and-line shing this year? LE Wed heard a whisper from Roland Marq (Belgiums manager) and Bobby about how it was going, and after the first couple of days practice it was obvious that they werent coming in on the pole line. Still, we all fish the slider and the fixed waggler pretty well and the result is now history. MF How far do you have to drive for your match shing? LE An average drive at the weekend is three hours to get to and from most venues. Woodland View is the commercial

I fish the most; it takes me an hour and a half to get there. Winter Leagues and Super Leagues for Thatchers take a similar time, apart from the double-header we fish at Porth Reservoir, which takes me three hours to get there. People often say to me: You travel a long way to fish your matches, but once youve had to drive halfway across Europe a few times it all seems easy. To get to Hungary, for instance, is a 24-hour straight drive. Thankfully, we flew this year, but we still have to drive to some of them. Its brilliant driving back and seeing the sights. Coming back from the Euros this year we stopped off at Lake Como and Lake Garda it was stunning scenery and makes the drive easier. MF Thanks for the insight, Lee. It certainly sounds like you have worked hard to get where you are, and we reckon there are denitely a few more medals in you yet! Its time to show us what you can do at Caerphilly Castle Lakes, where we are today.
Lee proved his versatility with a ne net of sh caught on a variety of methods.

Lee began by feeding two lines on the long pole: one at 11 metres straight in front for roach and skimmers, the other alongside the marginal bushes for carp and tench. The rst swim was kicked-off with ve balls of sonubaits.com Fin Perfect Marine Fishmeal groundbait mixed 50/50 with brown crumb. The carp and tench swim was fed with a small cup of soaked 2mm Fin Perfect pellets and corn every cast. Casters were the bait for the silvers, with the Welsh star getting into a rhythm with roach, better skimmers and some tiny perch to remind him of his childhood. Every 10 minutes he tried the big-sh line, often picking up two or three sh on single corn or a 4mm expander. A couple of tincas came in the rst few hours, but they stood no chance alongside the ravenous carp that were hoovering up the pellets. We used to just catch tench on that line, but since the club stocked some carp its become much like any other water, he observed. Once the sun had given way to a matt-grey blanket, Lee decided to pick up his waggler rod to demonstrate his slider skills. His 13ft Preston Sentient rod was matched to a Shimano Stradic reel loaded with 0.18mm (4lb) Korum reel line. A smooth swing red his 12g Perfect waggler out to 40 metres and a ball of groundbait was expertly landed next to its tip. Working through the gamut of baits at his disposal it took quite some time to entice a bite. A 6mm S-Pellet hook bait was successful and a proper old slab was the result. There used to be loads of these in here, but they probably get bullied by the carp a bit now. We caught them on worms or corn, but I suppose with all the carp boys ring in shmeal, they only want to eat pellets now. Hauling his nets out of the water as the sun dipped over the historic Welsh market town, we were witness to a proper result: close to 80lb of silvers and carp. No wonder the locals get scared when Lee comes home!

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