Friday 17th February 2023

This week saw the eagerly awaited  2 Day Spring Festival sponsored by tackle firms Milo and Bait Tech with the overall winner picking up £1000. The 54 anglers taking part faced a low clear river with mild temperatures around 12degrees. This match is primarily decided on a points system followed by the number of section wins and then weight. The match length was split into 2 sections below the Pumphouse downstream to the Victoria footbridge. Half the anglers fishing section A and the other half fishing section B. They would then swap sections for day 2. Each of these sections was further divided to provide 9 mini sections of 6 anglers. Winning your six peg section on each day was essential but also catching a good weight of fish.

Day 1 saw festival organiser Dave Roberts draw favoured peg 96 which was the final peg in the 6 peg section. Dave made no mistake on the peg  and easily won his section with 215lb 12oz well ahead of section runner up Rob Brennan who weighed in 69 – 4 from peg 92. This contrasted greatly to Clive Fletcher who scraped together  a weight of 1lb 12oz to win the top 6 peg section from below the Pumphouse. The day 1 prizewinners are shown below.

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Day 2

With similar conditions to the previous day, the top 3 anglers from Day 1 now needed another good draw to be able to win their section with a good weight. Peg 96 came up trumps again, this time for Brian Rigby who weighed in 147lb 12oz to win the section. The fish had obviously moved upstream slightly as the next 2 top weights on the day came from adjacent pegs 94 and 95. The Tennis Courts section which was won by James Robbins with 22lb 2oz the previous day, failed to produce again and Clive Fletcher only needed 5lb 2oz to take the section win. Day 1 winner on weight Dave Roberts drew peg 53  close to  Hunderton bridge and managed to win his section again with a catch of chub and perch for 26lb 9oz. This proved enough for him to win the festival with 2 section wins and a total weight of 242lb 5oz. Second was Steve Metcalfe with 2 section wins and a combined weight weight of 80lb 6oz. Third was James Robbins with 2 section wins and total weight of 52lb 12oz. ahead of 4th placed Rory Jones with 2 section wins and a combined weight of 46lb 14oz. Full results for Day 2and overall winners below.