Match Report
We were faced with the prospect of a very low and clear Rother with rain coming in at some point during the day. Not the best of circumstances for a match on the river so we knew that with 24 anglers on the river we would probably struggle.
C Knight from Stedham however had a very good day putting together an impressive silver fish bag of 6 – 7 – 0 from the big bend with cut up trees on the bank, catching in not much more than a foot of water he saw pretty much every fish he caught take the bait.
A couple of pegs down at the end of the straight was Nick Merritt from Rother who had 2 chub in the first ten minutes and nothing else for the rest of the match but his 4 – 1 – 0 was sufficient for 2nd place.
A further two pegs down was our own Mark (canal) Pantling he had a chub, a reasonable perch and bits and pieces for 4 – 0 – 0 and third place.
On the points front Petworth & Bognor are trailing a bit at the moment on 18, the surprise leaders are Stedham on 26 and Rother have 23.
I do have to record a landmark in the recent annuls of the Rother Valley Shield – our chairman – Nigel Chapman who has failed to trouble the scorers for the last 5 years brought a magnificent gudgeon to the scales to break his duck. Unfortunately it failed to register on the scales so we had to give him 4 drams.