Durham Invitational Forrest Lane
Durham Invitation Forest Lane
Friday 29th August 2025, this was the 6th and final match of the series, this took place at Forest Lane on Oaklands. The weather for the day was forecast light winds with heavy showers later in the afternoon.
As this was the last match of this series it was a great turn out from both Durham and Northumbria anglers, all looking forward to a great day’s fishing. The peg numbers were put in the drawing bucket, most anglers wanted the favoured House bank, this side holds good pockets of Barbel and for some reason produces the bigger carp.
09:00hrs, the draw was made, some happy anglers were very pleased with their draw, Dave Brown (Northumbria) got peg 5 the middle of the house side, with Paul Hutchinson (Northumbria) peg 11, same side. On arrival at the pegs fish were seen cruising all around the lake and people started to set an array of different pole top kits and rod set ups.
10:30hrs “All in” sounded, within seconds anglers started catching fish, Paul Anderson (Durham) using a pole, hit into a carp about 6lb, Graham Colclough (Durham) fishing his feeder rod also started hitting carp in the edge. Dave Brown (Northumbria) started of on the pellet waggler, casting towards the middle of the lake, but this wasn’t working for him so shortly went onto the long pole and started catching skimmers, barbel. After a few hours he soon went onto his trusted method feeder on the pole and started hitting the big double figure carp, also landing a barbel over 4lb. Paul Hutchinson (Northumbria) started on the bomb rod, casting to the far side reeds, this produced instant carp, he then went onto the pole and method feeder to start catching the larger stamp Carp. Ray Westgarth (Northumbria) also using the feeder down the edge and landing carp and Barbel. Boyd Weddel (Northumbria) stuck to his long pole and had a steady day catching a mixture of Carp, roach, skimmers and perch.
At 16:30hrs “Time” was sounded, everyone one was in agreement, this was a fantastic day’s fishing with some good fish caught, Dave Brown and Paul Hutchinson had Four keepnets in, with others also having to put extra nets in.
The scales attend each peg and recorded as:
1st Dave Brown (Northumbria) 171lb 11oz
2nd Paul Hutchinson (Northumbria) 141 11oz
3rd Graham Colclough (Durham) 81lb 15oz.
4th Ian Nicholson (Northumbria) 74lb 5oz
The overall results of the series of 6 matches at Forest Lane.
1st Dave Brown 12 points 648lb 09oz
2nd Paul Hutchinson 17 points 620lb 01oz
3rd Roy McClean 27 points 429lb 06oz
4th Paul Anderson 36 points 362lb 04oz
Well done to Dave Brown, winning this series with only 12 points and a fantastic weight of 648lb 9oz. Thank you to Durham for the invitation, despite Northumbria winning all matches apart from one, that was won by Roy McClean (Durham), we hope Northumbria get invited to next year’s fixtures.