![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/thames-reading.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nIt was at Reading Fishing Club\u2019s brilliant stretch of river at Beale Park and I drew peg 14 in the first zone, a few pegs further along from where I drew last year. Just 8lb won this zone last year and after seeing the entire length had fished hard on the previous week\u2019s charity match with no bream feeding I went with an all-out roach attack, hoping it\u2019d fish hard and 8-10lb would be enough. After a slow two hours I felt I fished a decent match when the roach eventually switched on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I caught on maggots and pinkies over Sonubaits Black Roach and River. Really happy to catch 11lb of roach, so I just needed the bream to still be hiding. No such luck! Must say a huge well done to Liam Page-Smith on a huge 89lb catch from peg 7, just 15 bream so they\u2019re big old slabs. And that\u2019s fresh from him winning the Division 1 National with a similar big bream weight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other two zones were won with 5lb and 8lb, so I felt a bit unlucky, especially as it\u2019s traditionally the middle zone that throws up the bream weights! Still a lovely day\u2019s fishing\u2026 and some lovely big blackberries to scoff behind my peg afterwards!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today I was on another qualifier, this time on the Nene at Oundle. Always fancied a go at Oundle after driving over it so many times and growing up reading Match Fishing articles with the likes of Roger Mortimer and his Keenets Central team. Getting all nostalgic now\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, I drew peg 5 on the plantations and was immediately told I\u2019d struggle to beat the first couple of pegs, which turned out to be dead right. The big bream failed to show on peg 1 but Dave Williams fished a great match to comfortably win the zone with 24lb of skimmers on the pole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew I had to be positive, so I sat it out most of the day hoping to snare some non-existent skimmers. My paltry 2lb 8oz was just enough to win a shiny \u00a31 off Dave Sholtz next door \u2013 although I would\u2019ve happily given it him back (and a lot more) as he and my neighbours helped rescue my van when I was hanging off the side of a hidden ditch! Thought I was in serious trouble, so I definitely owe them all a drink or two! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I must add a huge well done to Mike Bedding on winning the match and making another Riverfest Final. Thoroughly deserved mate! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So an up and down weekend, but nice to be sat beside the river, even though neither were flowing! Hope you all caught a few if you managed to get out on the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A nice weekend on two different rivers. Yesterday I was 3rd overall on the Thames Riverfest qualifier with 11lb 10oz of roach, but just a \u2018little\u2019 bit behind the zone-winning 89lb of bream! It...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,56,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-river","category-river-thames","category-roach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5059"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5063,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions\/5063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}