With the Warwickshire Avon at Eckington carrying around a foot of extra water and a good colour, big bream weights were expected at the Angling Trust RiverFest qualifier on Saturday 18th October.  

The Eckington Angling Club waters didn’t fail to deliver as 56 anglers put a total of 960 lbs on the scales with the top three amassing over 300 lbs from adjacent swims. 

The match was won by local angler Nick Burton at peg 28, the famous ‘Stump’ peg with 26 bream for a 121-10-0 total. Nick used open-end feeder tactics and fed two pints of casters plus 1/2kg of chopped worms with lobworm on the hook.  

Next door at peg 27, Brian Rigby had exactly the same amount of bream, but fell short of qualifying by just 8oz after weighing 121-2-0 on the same tactics as the winner.

On the other side of the winner, at peg 29, another local angler Ian Shepherd finished third overall with 12 bream for 62-14-0.  

More big weights followed with Scott Geens on 59-2-0 from peg 60 and Steve Hemingray with 41-0-0 from peg 53.

The incredible match didn’t just centre around bream catches either as B zone was won by Simon Deakin with 21-8-0, a catch made up largely of one carp weighing 21-6-0!

Top 5 Results1. Nick Burton 121-10-02. Brian Rigby 121-2-03. Ian Shepherd 62-14-04. Scott Geens 59-2-05. Steve Hemingray 41-0-0

Qualifiers for the RiverFest final

Nick Burton
Simon Deakin
Scott Geens

Two qualifying matches now remain to decide the six anglers who will join the 54 others in the big money November final.  The next match takes place on the Yorkshire Ouse on Saturday 25th October.