Many of the field had already written the Nene off as a suitable venue after recent poor results but thankfully in several areas the river performed much better than expected.

A tinge of colour through the bottom end of the match length saw the river spring to life with both bream and roach showing.

Top rod with an impressive 16lb 8oz of roach taken from the Railworld section was John Hazeldine. He fished pinkie and maggot over groundbait, taking a few late on with hemp seed.

Team-mate Tim Nash came second and he took skimmers and bream for 16lb 4oz.

Browning Hotrods got off to a fighting start on a venue they have slipped up on in previous years, finishing top on 35 points.

This weekend the big practice match will be on the River Nene at Oundle on pegs that will not be familiar to many of the field so it will be interesting to see the results.

Result: 1 J. Hazeldine, Browning Hotrods, 16lb 8oz; 2 T. Nash, Browning Hotrods, 16lb 4oz; 3 M. Pollard, Fox Match Stanjay, 15lb 14oz; 4 H. Schumann, Fox Match Stanjay, 15lb 13oz; 5 S. Higginbottom, Sensas Mark One White, 15lb; 6 C. Hardman, Wades MG, 12lb 8oz.

Teams: 1 Browning Hotrods 35pts; 2 Fox Match Stanjay Black 37; 3 VDE 39; 4 Wades MG 40; 5 Peterborough 42; 6 Sensas Mark One White 48.



The weekend's heavy rain came too late to be of any help to anglers competing in the first round of the South Holland League on the Nene at Wansford with less than 3lb needed to take top spot.

Fishing peg 15 on the Deeping St James stretch below Yarwell lock, host club member Wally Horton fished stick and maggot to record a winning weight of 2lb 9oz.

In second place was Ray Dodkin on 2lb 4oz fishing the feeder followed by Russell Hole with 2lb 2oz.

The next round of this five-match series will be fished on the Lido at Crowland when Crowland AC hosts the event.

n WILD, wet and windy conditions saw the Beastie Lake at Decoy a tough nut to crack for the JVAC lads, although winner Adrian Wylde made light work of it.

He finished top with 84lb 12oz of carp taken on the pole with pellet.

Second place went to Martin Freeman on 75lb 1½oz, with Barry Webb third on 46lb 2oz.



OUNDLE club anglers fished the Barnwell Deeps section of the River Nene and found a rising river a little out of sorts.

Steve Tyrell came out on top with a level 8lb. He had a good tench and 4lb plus of roach. Second place went to Malc Samson with 5lb 6oz followed by Dave Hill with 4lb 9oz.



SWITCHING venues saw the Ramsey AS anglers move away from the main Forty Foot drain because of the weather conditions onto the narrows on Sunday and what a good move it turned out to be.

However, a match on the same venue the day before spoilt sport for some.

In fact it was those pegs that had not been fished that produced the goods with Paul Kilby taking the top spot with 19lb 3oz.

Fishing his favourite chopped worm and caster approach the local rod caught five tench. Andrew Kilby had a net of skimmers, roach and perch to finish second on 11lb 3oz followed by Harry Young with 5lb 10oz.