PIKE caused problems again for anglers fishing the River Trent in the Ferry Bridge Open in Burton.
Competitors pegged in between the two bridges spent the day trying to avoid them.
The result was that the anglers pegged above the Ferry Bridge caught more than those pegged in between the bridges.
Waggler and maggots proved to be the top method, with almost all of the anglers fishing towards the middle of the river.
They all caught dace and some of the quality roach that are now well spread about the river.
Top rod was John Lavender with 12lbs 14ozs, a mixed bag of fish, mainly dace and roach from peg one in the Poplars.
This was Lavender’s first win in a series that will continue next month.
Runner-up Roy Bumstead is on a run at the moment and continued that with an excellent 11lbs 8ozs bag that was caught from a very shallow peg in the same Poplars.
Again, he used waggler and maggot and caught mainly dace for that weight.
Kevin Rutter drew just above the Ferry Bridge and found that he had to fish the waggler as his swim was so shallow close in.
He had three small chub included in his almost all dace net of 10lbs 1oz.
The best weight to come from between the bridges was that of Pete Wheatcroft.
He finished with a mainly roach net of 7lbs 9ozs, all caught on the waggler and bronze maggots.
BUMSTEAD was successful to in the Rangemore Angling Clubs latest match that was restricted to the water’s silver fish.
Callingwood is a hard nut to crack but he almost doubled the weight of his nearest challenger with a weight of 7lbs 15ozs.
Matt Walker was that nearest man with a level 4lbs to leave a tie for third place between Kev Moseley and Alan Johnson, both with 2lbs 13ozs.
ON the commercials, Dennis Hagues won the latest Over 60s Winter League match at Curborough Fishery.
He was virtually the only angler to catch any of the fishery’s larger carp and won the match with a total of 20lbs, all taken on the pole at distance.
The water’s goldfish came in for a bit of stick after that with John Webber taking 17lbs 3ozs and Pete Wheatcroft, 15lbs 6ozs.
The best weights taken last week came in the Stoppos Open in which Dave Kinson spent a fishless first two hours.
After that is was action all the way as carp to 6lbs responded to his method feeder and luncheon meat combination.
He was a clear winner with 35lbs 4ozs.
Runner-up Pete Johnson fished worms alongside his feeder with the result that he caught bream, tench and carp for his 25lbs weight.
Third place went to Mark Tomlinson with 24lbs 4ozs, all carp to 6lbs caught on chopped worm.
THE first open for many years at the Manor Park Gravels proved an interesting affair.
Pleasure nets during the preceding week topped the 100lbs mark but all of the competitors struggled to find the pit’s bigger bream.
Instead, Mark Beardmore caught a small roach on his first cast that was promptly taken by a pike of 6lbs that he deftly netted and had it weighed straight away.
Along with several other small roach, all of which took maggots fished on a feeder at distance, he weighed in 9lbs.
Runner-up Gary Lees fished the same method for 2lbs 5ozs and Richard Hemmings took the only bream of the day in his bag of 1lb 8ozs.
