#043 - Nathan Watson

What's interesting, obviously, I didn't know, all this early days fishing for you, these mainly natural venues

yeah yeah i fished pretty much exclusively natural venues till i was early 20s right i started fishing a few little matches at owen lakes now mabel thought i got into carp fishing and then started going to hayfield lakes probably soon after that which is where the fish show final was at the time, I think the first one was Mallory Park and then it went to Holcroft, then Hayfield, which was when I really started trying to qualify.

Before I'd entered a few qualifiers, but then when it was at Hayfield where I was fishing regularly, I thought I want to qualify.

I want to enter as many qualifiers as I can.

What did you sort of set your heart on being able to get in that final and win the big prize spot? Yeah,

except at that time, it was the only big money televised competition.

And yeah, everyone or every serious angler wanted to be in it and win it.

And how did you go about qualifying and getting in final? Because you were very young when you got in your first final, weren't

you? Well, I was 22, I think.

At the time, I was the youngest winner.

Steve Ringer was probably a few months older when he'd won.

I tried to qualify before that.

I think when I was like, as soon as I was old enough, I can't remember if it was 16 or 18.

Yeah.

Very nearly qualified on the Trent and Mersey Canal.

Go on, what happened to

you?

We got walking along, you could see all these cars cruising along the far bank.

Started fishing, went across the far side, double corn, hooked one, got it in my landing net, landing net broke and lost it.

No! I only had one landing net.

I had to walk miles trying to find a spare one.

What happened? Did it swim off your landing net or something? Yeah, it just broke and escaped.

I can't remember the exact details, but I think the hook just pulled out.

I think it got in the landing net and then the landing net broke and the hook pulled out.

Oh, no.