Topcats Invitational

There had been no Battle of the Bars for a while and a few of the lads wanted to try a new form of competition, with a new idea based on points and not weight. The new format allowed the teams to strategize their afternoon better and with the overall goal of the competition was to be a lot more relaxed and that you could win from any swim,

The event is more of a species hunt, the rarer the fish the more points you could accrue. The holy grail was the Julien which could amass you 30 points ( some bright spark, Rob, wanted to know about the Stingray though…… as there are only 2 in the Lake this was given 50 points )

As seems to be the norm, The French Kiss, Coco Beach Bar and The Marvels were present but as this was an invitational there were 3 new teams taking part. Paul and Shona fished as Winchops, Paul’s mate, Evan fished with Shelley as WDS and yours truly teamed up with Ondrej as Team SimOn.

The match was still 4 hours; however, the rules were changed. Each team had 2 rods, one had to be boilie and after the draw you could choose a fish rod if you wanted.

As well as the normal bait pack, the teams also got 1kg of fish and could bring their own hook baits, Amazing what I saw; sweetcorn, lobworms, Prawns, Mussels, and Luncheon meat to name a few of the delicacies on offer. Loose feeding of these exotic baits was strictly not allowed.

After the draw everyone took one of each rod except the Winchops who went 2 boilie rods.

I was happy with my draw ,  Redtail Haven, and it lived up to its name, with me landing a 40lb Amazon in the first 5 minutes on Boilie and Ondrej, who was still sober at that time, landing a 60lb lump on fish 5 minutes later. We were already counting the winnings with 12 points in the bag. I only managed 2 more carp and Ondrej missed a host of bites that we believed to be Gar on the fish rod and on corn far out as we tried for a Gourami in the weed.

New filtered up that Coco Beach landed the smallest Arapaima in the lake, but 8 points got them off and running.

Paul and Shona fishing next to were regretting not taking a fish rod, but I watched Paul do an expert cast to the yellow room and get an immediate take. The way he struck he thought it was an Arapaima but the Gourami hanging on was just as valuable with 8 points in the bag.

Evan (WDS) was catching Carp from the Coconut, but he hooked into a monster. A carp angler in the UK, the 100lb+ Mekong ran him round the lake, and he eventually landed it in my peg after the best fight he has ever had.

Rob and Malcolm (Cocos’) were doing well in the drinking stakes, but as Malcolm landed 2 Asians they were right back in the game. The French kiss had a good last hour on the Carp from the Carp Channel and a small Asian helped them further.

The less said about the Marvels the better, which Paul (Sooty) in as a reserve for Brownie, the Deep-Water Peg failed to fire.

Meanwhile Paul and Shona had an Asian and then went on a carpfest landing 9 in total to claim the 4000-baht prize in the Invitation Event.

Overall was that it was a good format, and the result was never going to be decided until the final minutes.

Full Result