Easter Festival Saturday Day 1 2011

 

Today saw the start of the 2011 Easter Festival and an eager 24 anglers were hoping to be crowned Festival champion after the next three days of hard competition. Apart from a strong attendance of open regular anglers there was also two times champions { Matt Smith  } who was again looking for another chance of victory.

The festival is fished over three days and each angler draws his section on day one and then fishes in rotation the next two over the next two days ie if you draw B section one day one you then fish C on day two and A on day Three.

A Section comprised of pegs 34,36,38,40,2,4,6,7

B Section comprised of Pegs 8,9,10,13,28,29,31,32

C Section comprised of pegs 14,15,17,18,22,23,25,26

The winner of each section gets 1 points assending up to 8 point for last place in section but you have to catch a fish and weigh in to get  points, so the winner at the end of the festival is the angler that has the least points and in the event of anglers tied on the same points the winner is decided on weight.

John tells me the story of the day was the anglers were greeted to a really warm day with no breeze and the fish could be seen cruising on the top especially in the small lake. As the match started both Jon Walker and Liam Bough were in to fish early in the match in C section with Liam’s swim dying towards the end and he ended up 3 fish short of a section win as Jon managed to keep the fish coming till the end. Also in this section was RTG team mates Mick Lane and Phil Powell who were on a peg to peg battle on 14 and 15 and after 5 hours Mick ended the victor with 100-00 to Phil’s 78-08.

In B section it was much harder with Geoff Edwards catching as many fish as he was losing on peg 8 but still ended up well clear of 2nd place Steve Waters on peg 13 who was having a close match with Ernie Malyon on 31 and only 5 lb seperated the two even though Ernie only had 3 fish for 49-08. For the rest of the anglers it was tough although very close in the end as there was only 30lb between 2nd and 8th.

The main action came from A section as it had some of the top carp match anglers from the south competing in it, and coming out on top was Derek Hammond who is one of Rolfslake’s current form angler as he won the midweek open and has had other victories down the lake this year. Derek was fishing peg 4 on the motorway bank which has had indiffernt form this year but Derek sorted it out today and put a double ton weight on the board for victory on the day overall. There was a very close battle for second between Geoff Warmington and Dave Whiteman on pegs 40 and 2 which had seen a lot of fish cruising in this area and after 5 hours Geoff came out on top by just 8 ounces with both anglers putting big weights together Geoff’s 184-08 to Daves 184-00. There were also 4 other ton weights in this really productive section which always gets better as the festival goes to days two and three, so watch out to see if the top weight of 300lb can be broken in this festival.

In this match today there was 2083lb of fish caught with A section providing 1158lb B section providing 375lb and C section providing 550lb at an average of 86.7lb per angler so take a bow Rolfslake for giving up your fish to the travelling anglers.

Roll on day 2.

Results.

24 Fishing.

A Section.

Place	Angler	Peg	Weight	Points
1st	Derek Hammond	4	225-08	1
2nd	Geoff Warmington	2	184-08	2
3rd	Dave Whiteman	40	184-00	3
4th	Mark Malin	6	144-00	4
5th	Pat Pritchard	34	136-04	5
6th	Matt Smith	36	130-00	6
7th	Andy Johnstone	38	98-08	7
8th	Colin Wedgebrow	7	57-00	8

 

B Section.

Place	Angler	Peg	Weight	Points
1st	Geoff Edwards	8	124-12	1
2nd	Steve Waters	13	54-08	2
3rd	Ernie Malyon	31	49-08	3
4th	Clive Pritchard	10	35-08	4
5th	Johnny Broadbent	9	33-08	5
6th	Chris Telling	32	30-00	6
7th	Frank Hardie	28	26-08	7
8th	John Hague	29	24-00	8

 

C Section.

Place	Angler	Peg	Weight	Points
1st	Jon Walker	18	158-00	1
2nd	Liam Bough	22	139-08	2
3rd	Mick Lane	14	100-00	3
4th	Phil Powells	15	78-08	4
5th	Mick Hughes	26	46-08	5
6th	Paul Newbury	23	15-00	6
7th	Paul Glenfield	17	14-08	7
8th	Mick Chapell	25	DNW	–

Top 6 after day 1.

Place	Angler	Weight	Points	Sponsor
1st	Derek Hammond	225-00	1	Banbury Gunsmiths
2nd	Jon Walker	158-00	1	Walker Floats
3rd	Geoff Edwards	124-12	1	Reading Angling Centre
4th	Geoff Warmington	184-08	2	Rolfslake
5th	Liam Bough	139-08	2	Rolfslake
6th	Steve Waters	54-08	2	Frenzee

Come back tomorrow to see the results  from day two .

My website partner Simon will be taking up the reporting Duties for days 2 and the final day as i am off on travels again so please be patient as he will do all he can to get the results to you as they come in { thanks Si }.

Thanks for reading Simon, Eddie and John.