Ahtletics with Reg Hook

MARION Atkins of Battle Road St Leonards became the third lady angler in the country to qualify as a National Federation of Anglers Regional Coach after completing a course at Ashford with Senior Regional Coach Alan Sandom.

Having been fishing for seven years Marion is now qualified to teach all aspects of freshwater angling including: pole fishing, ledgering, feeder fishing, waggler and carp fishing.

She often fishes with her husband Martin mainly on still waters, but sometimes ventures out to the rivers and even goes sea fishing. She has caught carp to 17lb 8oz, tench to 4lb 8oz and bream to 5lb 8oz.

Long Reed Lakes have been fishing best mornings and evenings with the best carp recently caught weighing 15lb 8oz. It was a common and was taken by Richard Gosling on a whiskey boilie fished over a bed of hemp.

One of the best catches recently was landed by Dave Ford who fished crab and mussel boilies to land 18 big carp to 12lb plus 15lb of smaller fish for a total weight of 195lb. Roach, rudd and tench to 1lb were also caught on bread flake and sweetcorn fished on the float.

St Ives Farm Fishery has fished well recently with one angler catching 16 carp which were mostly commons to 12lb. However, the biggest fish was a mirror of 22lb taken by Norman Mires on floating bread crust. There were also bream to 4lb, and crucians to 2lb caught mainly on maggots and sweetcorn.

At Ardingly Reservoir Tim Webb fished Bird Hide Bay to catch 33 bream 3lb to 5lb and 6 tench to 6lb 8oz while feeder fishing with a swing tip over heavy groundbait. A pike of 24lb was caught by accident just a rod length out by an angler reeling in a small roach which it took.

At Iden Wood Fishery David Cramp of Hastings on only his third time ever carp fishing caught a 26lb 4oz mirror carp from the Specimen Lake on a peperami stick. The lake has fished really well recently with at least ten carp caught over 20lb and on the Tench Pond anglers are catching as many as 20 fish in a session to 2lb 8oz mainly on sweetcorn.

The first round of the Seven League was fished at Broadhurst lake and ponds where catches were made up of bream to 7lb. Section 1: Alan Phillips (Horsted Keynes) 20lb 8oz, Section 2: Dave Carney (Stigmatt) 6lb 13oz, Section 3: Steve Clinch (Stigmatt) 16lb 10oz, Section 4: John Robinson (Stigmatt) 17lb 2oz, Section 5: Clive Norman (Isfield B) 12lb 9oz, Section 6: Brian Funnell (Stigmatt) 23lb, Section 7: Mick Hart (Isfield A) 19lb 6oz. Teams on the day: Stigmatt 43pts, Isfield A 36, Horsted Keynes 36, Percy s 28, Falkenvil and Isfield B 26.

Southdown AA fished the 4th round of the Marsh Shield On the Wallers Haven at Ironbridge. 1st Brian Nesbit 19lb 6oz, 2nd Roger Izzard 16lb 15oz, 3rd Peter Gabbitas 9lb 15oz.