WELL, the new river season has certainly brought the good weather with it and local streams have fished rather better this week.

I hear that the Arrow around Studley has been fishing particularly well, with lots of chub moving. The Avon also is showing some reasonable form although rather patchy.

Lots of local match action to tell you about this week.

Despite the warm weather, weights were only average in the Thursday evening South Redditch AC match on Beoley Pool. Bob Whitehouse took the honours with three bream and a tench on wagglered caster for a 6lb 3oz tally. Shayne Harrison was in second spot with 5-13-8 in front of Gordon Harrison's tench brace of 4lb 6oz.

My Hymatic AC chairman John Oldfield had a good win in Friday's Needles AC open at Skilt's Pool. John had a catch of three carp for 24lb 8oz with his two best fish weighing in at 20lb. Derek Hopkins (Needles) was second again with 14lb 12oz of small carp. Mark Green (Powells FT) was next with 12lb 15oz, just edging Alan Lloyd into fourth spot on 12lb 10oz. James Pitman (Shimano) took the roach pot with 8lb 12oz of redfins.

Next day 27 members of the Needles club travelled over to the Heron pool at Wolverley for their day out. Over 600lb of fish were caught for a massive 22lb average catch per man. Match secretary Derek Hopkins ended his run of near misses with an excellent 62lb catch of carp on meat bait for a clear win. Rick Liddell had 53lb 4oz for second to lead Timmy Bryan with 52lb 10oz and Bob Berry with 31lb. Section awards went to Dave Lewis and Steve Berry.

Paul Ford (Lion AC) topped the Redditch Fed delegates match at Willow Marsh near Droitwich with a 24lb 9oz carp bag. Keith Deaner (Astwood Bank AC) was second with 15lb 13oz in front of Doug Greenow (Lion AC) on 13lb 14oz and Steve Rogers (Arrow Enfield) with 9lb 1oz.

Another Hymatic angler Scott Poynton (Broadacres MG) was top of the pile in the Saturday open at Broadacres. Scott took a catch of 17lb 1oz from peg 40. John Harris (Triplex) was second with 16lb 8oz on peg 42 to head Nick Archer (Broadacres) with a 14lb 2oz return.

Our first river report of the week is from the Enfield AC match at West Hillborough on Saturday. Well known local angler Don Palmer took top spot with good figures of 14-15-0 which comprised some small fish taken on the float before a late switch to the feeder tempted three big chub in a good last hour. Richard Steele was runner-up with 6lb 2oz ahead of Tony Bradshaw with 5lb 4oz for third.

A few miles downstream at Abbotts Salford the Astwood Bank AC's first aggregate match of the new campaign was very hard. Winner Paul Heath took advantage of some bankside cover to winkle out 1-14-8 of small roach and perch taken on maggot bait. Alan Lloyd was second with 1-7-0 and the winner's dad Dennis took third with a 14oz catch. Match secretary Nigel Hill tells me that entry to the club's aggregate series has been extended due to the foot and mouth problems and members can still enter by contacting him.

Things were better for the Dark Lane AC's Carpenter shield match on the Arrow at Oversley. River expert Tony Sabin lost some hefty chub but still managed to put together 11lb 12oz on the stick float for a good win from peg 21. Terry Sealey also had chub for his 7lb 9oz second place bag to head Shawn Sawyer with a mixed catch of 7lb 2oz. Section winners were Neil Bayliss, Martin Spencer and Simon Howl.

Sunday's Studley AS club match on the Arrow at Ragley saw some excellent weights taken with barbel prominent. Winner Karl Smith blitzed the match with a cracking ten-barbel catch of 44lb taken from a peg on the 'forty-acre' field. Karl's best fish went 6lb 8oz and they came to bronze maggot hook bait fished on the link.

Simon Cobb was second with three 'whiskers' for 15lb 5oz to head Paul Coles with 11lb 11oz and Adey Leach with a 10lb 7oz catch. Section prizewinners were A section Jim Wills (9-10-0) and D Vincent (8-10-0) and B section N Ferriday (10-0-0) and S Knowles (5-6-0).

Upstream things were a little quieter for the Alcester Trades Club match. Here Phil Hall took pole position with a 5lb 9oz catch. Phil took three fair skimmers on the crumb feeder plus a few perch for his catch on peg 55. Bobby Dean was second with a brace of tench for 3lb 8oz to head club stalwart Dave 'Bumper' Strain with 2lb 2oz. Oh, and by the way, I must congratulate Terry Smith of Trades Club who actually managed to catch a fish this week, apparently something of a rarity!

Young Lee Askew pole fished the margin for four tench going 6lb 7oz to win the Astwood Bank juniors scramble at Wood Bevington. Eight-year-old Sam Hill had over 100 fish on the whip for his 3lb 5oz runner-up catch with five-year-old Kieran Danks third with a level 1lb return. Organiser Paul Heath runs another junior match next week, ring him on 522704 to enter.

Phew, Tight Lines.