Loddon Angler Billy Coote had a run out to the Topcroft fishery near Hempnall for a change to while a few hours away pleasure fishing, and fished well out on peg 10 with the feeder with no great success.

Loddon Angler Billy Coote had a run out to the Topcroft fishery near Hempnall for a change to while a few hours away pleasure fishing, and fished well out on peg 10 with the feeder with no great success. However after an hour or so his eagle eyes soon noticed bankside disturbance and a colouring of the water. Donking his bait in just inches from the edge resulted in instant a by the end of his session. Other anglers have caught smaller carp well on sweetcorn but it is still a matter of locating the main shoal as silver fish are not present in abundance.

In spite of the Closed Season over twenty holiday making anglers were seen fishing in the River at Beccles and when challenged by local anglers were very quick to point out that their Environment Agency does not dictate any dates for preventing fishing, merely siting some obscure reference to “Environment Agency Bylaws” and they thought buying a new licence dated from 1 April was all that was required of them. Quite correctly they claim, no where locally can the aforementioned “Bylaws” be found displayed. The common misapprehension now some thirty odd years out of date pertains that fishing is still permitted at Easter, but of course there was not an Environment Agency Bailiff in sight to assist! Neither was there at Bungay Common on the River at Sandy where four people in spite of protests proudly took their catch of perch home with them, or on the Common Pond which comes under some Broads Authority mystique put upon Suffolk County AAA preventing angling there until 16 June. These breaches of the law look set to continue un-encountered by the appropriate authorities and are hardly the responsibility of either local anglers or a long-suffering Harbourmaster.

Better news is that a large shoal of bream spawned for 3 days at low tide in the cut off dyke mouth at Shipmeadow and another huge shoal is massed seemingly ready to do the same just into the straight of Diary Farm.

At Nigel Bales Ellingham Nursery Fishery the main waters received an injection of fish from his stock pond boosting with not only mirrors between 3 lbs and 6 lbs but some wonderfully grown on genuine tremendously hard fighting “Wild” Carp around 3 lbs. Ounce for ounce these match the power of any barbel with their low slung streamlined bodyweight and are a great addition to the young angler's records of personal bests.

Advance booking of your ticket with a £10 deposit is the best move now for the Marsh Trail Lakes, Beccles two day Festival Match on May bank holiday weekend Sat/Sun 5th_ 6th May. Based on a points score system for the winner overall competitors will be fishing alternate lakes A and C over the two days. This new for the Area 40 peg event is set to payout 70% in prize money, over £1100.00 (subject to bookings) making it one of the largest Angling payouts for local still water matches and at a venue where silver fish on A Lake may well play a substantial part boosting backing weights. Tickets for the weekend are priced at £40.00 per head, for information /booking contact David Ragan on (01502 476219) or (07913 115610)

Results:

Open Match

Marsh Trail Lakes - 7th March

J. Hurren 13lb; J. Kelly 11lb; R. Foster 10lb 8oz

Fixtures:

OPEN MATCHES:

Marsh Trail Lakes:

Saturday 14th April on Lake A

Draw pegs @ 8am Fish 9am to 2 pm.

£10.00 per head all in, 1st 2nd 3rd place pay out.

For booking /details Contact Dave on 01502 476219 or

07913 115610.

Also on Saturday 21st April in C Lake and on Sunday 22nd April in A Lake run by Bungay Cherry Tree Ac