Conditions for this years four-day silver fish festival at Larford Lakes were not ideal with a strong north wind providing a very wintery feel to proceedings.

Despite the cold, the festival was dominated by Larford's infamous skimmer bream with fish averaging between 10oz - 3lbs being caught throughout the week.

Many of the fish were caught either on the long pole at 13-14.5 metres with soft hooker pellets fed in conjunction with fishery 4mm pellets or open-end swim feeder tactics fished with a red maggot hookbait at 30-35 metres. The resident carp were also active but only contributed 8oz each to an anglers overall weight, despite specimens to 20lb+ being landed on 0.10mm hooklengths!

In joint first place overall and with 4pts were Lewis Murawski (Dynamite Baits / Guru), who finished with 157lbs overall, and Gary Skerrit (Maver Pickering's) with 145lbs.

Third overall was Maver sales rep Sean Wright with 6pts.

In fourth place was Andrew "Spud" Murphy of Tredegar A/C with 7pts.

The remainder of the field included Preston's Paul Holland, Maver's Ian Giddins & Paul Boothby and Bolton A/C's Jason Leonard, all finishing in joint fifth place overall with 12pts each.

For a more in-depth report, please be sure to reas the match report on our news page.

Overall Points Scores:

4pts - Lewis Murawski

4pts - Gary Skerrit

6pts - Sean Wright

7pts - Andrew Murphy

= 12pts - Paul Holland, Ian Giddins, Paul Boothby & Jason Leonard