With the river at last calming down several hardy souls braved the cold weather and held a match on the Steart length of the river, down from the Bull car park, on Sunday.
Lots of small roach and perch were caught and Ian Paulley, pegged half way along the first field, had a good winning weight of small fish weighing in at 8lbs 6ozs. Ian alternated between pole and running-line rigs to tempt lots of fish on red maggot and pinkie baits; a very good weight on the day.
In second place Mick Haskell, pegged on the downstream end peg, used bread punch and red maggot hookbaits to weigh in 5lbs 7ozs. Mick used a stick float running line rig throughout and started the match with a few small chub in the first half-hour. After this good start the action tailed off and he spent the rest of the (5-hour) match catching tiny roach using single maggot on a size 20 hook.
Kev Bennett made up the frame with a third-placed bag of small roach and perch caught on maggot or small worm hookbait. Thats’s it for now folks. Hopefully the weather (and THE virus) will not be too unkind before the river season ends on March14th.