Easter Festival day 1 {report by Eddie}

Today saw the start of the Rolfslake Easter festival and an assembled group of 24 anglers were going to pit themselves against their peers for the next three days. The reigning champion of 2014 Steve Waters {Drennan } was in attendance trying to do what no other angler has done by retaining the title for a second year.

The story of the first day was the weather was cold and windy blowing from the small lake into pegs 18 and 22 where the fish had been gathered for the last 6 weeks so a draw in this area would be a great start for the anglers fishing C section.

The section the anglers did not want to draw on day 1 was A section as it usually fishes hard getting better on days 2 and 3 as the bait gets put in settling the fish. B section is usually the fairest as it has a good selection of pegs to choose from so this was going to be the one for me to watch from the cafe today .

With the all in called it was a slow start in the first two hour getting better in hours three to five with anglers starting to line up a few carp as they went down in the water and came closer to the bank. A perfect example of this was Malc Doyle on 26 who set his stall to fish the top two line and paste and pellet and eventually the carp  came to him and he caught 6 for 64-05 and he missed quite a few bites showing the fish were happy to feed in the shallower water. Right opposite onn peg 14 John Draper was also having some good sport by fishing down to the bush on his right catch fish to big double figures in his final weight of 96-14.

The top three section winners today were Geoff Edwards {Colmic Reading } who was well well clear in A section with a great mixed bag of carp and 40lb of bream for 74-03 fish on the deck between 7 and 16 meters fishing pellet.

In B section the winner and fishing next to Geoff on peg 8 and fresh from his victory yesterday was Anthony Flint. Anthony fished a variety of lines to catch his weight of 97-14 and just ahead of his travelling partner Andy Quarmby {Middy} who was only two odd pounds behind on 95-05.

Completing the report on C section which was a real cliffhanger as the top three anglers in this section were seperated by only 12lb but eventually was won by Steve Waters {Drennan} with 108-14 who had fish to nearly 20lb by fishing long down the edge fishing corn and pellet hookbaits but also frustratingly lost a lot of fish as they would not settle down and feed properly. Spare a thought for Chris Telling {Colmic} who could of won the section as he landed and accidently missed the keepnet with a fish of at least 10lb that went through a hole in his landing net and back in to the lake.

It will be an interesting day tomorrow as the weather is supposed to get a little better so good luck to all the anglers for a good days fishing.

A special thanks goes to Steve Waters and Peter Drennan who have arranged a goodie bag of the full set of the new Drennan hookbaits and bait boosters for all the anglers fishing the Festival a fantastic gesture from a fantastic company thankyou very much.

A Section
Peg	Angler	Weight	Position
7	Geoff Edwards	74-3	1
2	Mick Chappell	34-13	2
40	Dave Wilsdon	27-14	3
36	Michael Corsini	13-3	4
34	Paul Newbury	13-1	5
5	John Morgan	8-10	6
38	Wez Hillier	5-1	7
4	Steve Stayte	4-1	8

B Section
Peg	Angler	Weight	Position
8	Anthony Flint	97-14	1
29	Andy Quarmby	95-5	2
28	Dai Thomas	63-0	3
32	Phil Powell	57-11	4
10	Dave Whiteman	35-0	5
13	Andy Johnstone	32-13	6
9	Kevin Simpson	22-3	7
31	Pat Pritchard	8-10	8

C Section
Peg	Angler	Weight	Position
22	Steve Waters	108-14	1
17	Chris Telling	103-3	2
14	John Draper	96-14	3
26	Malc Doyle	64-5	4
25	Mick Lane	62-1	5
15	Ernie Malyon	49-2	6
18	Mark Sawyer	32-12	7
23	Charlie Bishop	14-12	8

Total Points
Angler	Points after weight
Steve Waters	1
Anthony Flint	1
Geoff Edwards	1
Chris Telling	2
Andy Quarmby	2
Mick Chappell	2

Other pictures from the day…

Thanks for Reading. John, Eddie and Simon