Results

Pollard takes the win in first Riverfest of the year.
The very first qualifier for the Angling Trust Riverfest competition took place this weekend on the River Yare.
 
The weather had changed from very hot and sunny to damp and overcast with a chilly easterly wind. With excellent roach bags coming out during practice off the match length during the week most anglers were expecting the roach to dominate proceedings, however with the overcast conditions and a full ebb tide throughout the match the, up until now rather elusive bream and skimmers were likely to have a go. This made it a difficult match to make a call on which methods would succeed.

After an hour of the start it was evident that the roach were to prove elusive and that sitting it out on the feeder was the likely option to provide the top weights.

It became evident that the word on the bank was that a battle was ensuing between Mark Pollard (Daiwa Angling Direct) and Will Freeman (Preston Innovations/Browning Hotrods) pegged nearly a mile apart.

Mark on peg 69 on the Boards was soon into a run of skimmers and bream running fish for fish throughout the match with Will on peg 142 at Langley. Both were fishing similar methods casting ground bait feeder long range baiting worm maggot and caster.

At the whistle the word on the bank was that things were very tight between the two, on weigh in Mark weighed 25lb 8oz beating Will by just on ounce with 25lb 7oz.

Unbeknown to anybody yet another battle took place for third and fourth places overall, Steve Sadler who had travelled up from Gloucesterweighed 21lb 4oz from peg 141 using long range ground bait feeder tactics only to be ounced out by Tony Anderson (Daiwa Angling Direct Sensas) with 21lb 5oz from peg 126, Tony alternated between long range feeder and pole for a mixed bag of roach and skimmers.

The three qualifiers who go through to the final of Riverfest 2013 on the River Wye are:

Zone 1 – Mark Pollard (Daiwa Angling Direct 25lb 8oz
Zone 2 – Andrew Moss (Browning Hotrods) 18lb 12oz
Zone 3 – Will Freeman (Preston Innovations/Browning Hotrods) 25lb 7oz

Full Result

1st Mark Pollard (Daiwa Angling Direct) 25lb 8oz from peg 69
2nd Will Freeman (Preston Innovations/Browning Hotrods) 25lb 7oz from peg 142
3rd Tony Anderson (Daiwa Angling Direct Sensas)21lb 5oz from peg 126
4th Steve Sadler (Gloucester) 21lb 4oz from peg 141
5th Andrew Moss (Browning Hotrods) 18lb 12ozfrom peg 94
6th Graham Binks (Daiwa Angling Direct) 16lb 14ozfrom peg 140

We are still waiting for the full report from the Great Ouse qualifier, but the result is as follows:

River Great Ouse, Littleport (60 pegs)
1 Bob Bates, Sensas Mark One, 5-10-0 peg 33 4lb 8oz tench and a few bits worm and maggot 13m
2 Michael Fairey, Oakwood Angling, 5-9-0 peg 50 skimmers 6oz long pole maggot over GB
3 M Stanley, Oakwood Angling, 4-14-8
4 S Welford, Browning Hot Rods, 4-8-0
5 B Oliver, Maver Image, 3-14-0
6 G Rockett, Littleport AC, 3-13-0