MAP UK Pole Championship 2025
After three qualifying rounds the 2025 MAP UK Pole Championship arrived at Tunnel Barn Farm for this year’s final.
With sixty top anglers all earning their place in qualifiers up and down the country, they’d all be hoping it would be them taking home the £1000, MAP prizes plus the prestigious UK Pole Championship Trophy and most importantly of all, the title of UK Pole Champion for 2025.
Following the draw, some anglers felt they had an excellent chance of being competitive but others naturally didn’t fancy their draw quite as much. One thing was for certain though, in Tunnel Barn Farm we had one of the best fisheries in the country providing the perfect battleground for a competition of this type.
With the majority of the lakes being snake style with islands at 13-16m range and many different tactics that are effective, it would require good decision making to get the best results on the day.
Solid with F1s, Carp and silverfish there was going to be lots of bites for everyone whether they were on a noted flyer or an average draw which is so important when it comes to selecting a final venue.
With prizes for section winners as well as the main frame, everyone had something to fish for so we fully expected to see a competitive five hours of competition.
At the all-in it was interesting to see the different ways that our anglers kicked their matches off, some started short on pellets others shipped straight across to the island or fished down the edge in the shallower water and a few even fished shallow from the off with maggots and casters.
In the early stages, it was those who started short who seemed to be having the most success, catching mainly f1s but with a few bonus carp showing early this one had the hallmarks of a classic!
The lakes in use for this year’s final were Top, New, Extension and House Pools, all of which include pegs capable of winning the match and it would be down to how each fished on the day – early on, New Pool seemed to be fishing well with George Robinson and Andrew Dearing at the bowl end of the lake putting fish in the net from the off.
Around the venue there were fish being caught everywhere, with a mix of tactics working well but the most effective by far were shallow tactics either with a conventional rig or the ever popular overshotted rig with maggots or casters.
There were lots of fish being caught across and down the edge too, meaning shallow water seemed to be the best areas to target.
House Pool was providing lots of bites for quite a few anglers and it looked as though several 100lb weights were going to be recorded with John Harvey and Chris Slater looking to be getting their noses in front of the chasing pack.
In the later stages, the fishing certainly changed with most anglers turning their attentions to margin fishing and it didn’t take too long before the venues carp started to feed with aggression!
Several anglers around the venue, including John Harvey on House and Andrew Dearing on New Pool were catching quite a few and looked to be locked into a battle for the match win on the day.
After the weigh in our champion was confimed, your 2025 MAP UK Pole Champion was Andrew Dearing on Peg 1 of New Pool with an impressive 148lb 2oz.
Speaking to us after the match Andrew said “I’ve had a brilliant match today by just keeping it simple, I started on a top kit with maggots to the pads and caught a few fish there but it wasn’t brilliant, so I made a change to the left hand edge with micros and worms finding a few bigger f1s and a carp.
It's just been a case of alternating between lines – both edges and a meat short line – but it wasn’t until two hours to go when I started to see signs on that left hand margin, fishing micros and worms I’ve managed to catch carp regularly until the edge, between 6 and 9lb which has seen me over the line today.
I’m delighted to have won such a prestigious match, thanks to MAP, Match Fishing Magazine and Tunnel Barn Farm for putting on an excellent event!”
MAP UK Pole Championship Final 2025
Top Three
1st – Andrew Dearing – New 1 – 148lb 2oz - £1000, Trophy and TKS G-Series G40
2nd – John Harvey – House 4 – 131lb 4oz – Pools plus Z36 Elite Seatbox
3rd – Chris Slater – House 31 – 129lb 2oz – Pools plus two DUAL MKII Pole Rollers
We would like to say a massive thank you to David Haynes and the team at Match Fishing Magazine for their hard work and dedication running all of the qualifiers and the final throughout the year, and also to the staff at Tunnel Barn Farm for their hospitality on the day.
