Better weather means clearer water on rivers and a change of tactics for match anglers fishing the Evesham Festival qualifiers.

On Saturday in the Wychavon match fished by 75 anglers, Steve Ashmore started on the feeder, picking up a few perch and eels. He fed a pole line with hemp all day and in the last hour gave it a go, and had an instant response with 18 quality roach up to 1lb for a 10-11-0 winning total. Sunday’s Shakespeare Championship qualifier produced two outstanding roach weights as well. Tony Marshall caught roach on hemp for the last half of the match for 18-12-0 to make it two second places on consecutive days. But his net was bettered in the 59-pegger by Daiwa Gordon League’s Ian Shepherd, who had a look on his pole line after an hour on peg 35 and ended up banking 70 good sized roach for an excellent 23-13-8.