First visit to the venue and a big match win!

There are those who swear that an intimate knowledge of a venue is a must for success, but Lee Kerry showed that’s not always the case by winning the latest Angling Trust RiverFest qualifier on the River Weaver – on his first visit to the North West waterway!

Lee Kerry knows a thing or two about catching bream (Southfield image)

Having booked on at the last minute, Lee weighed in 46-15-12 of bream and skimmers to cruise to victory from Kevin Hall on 25-7-0. Lee was helped by drawing a great peg, but good pegs don’t fish themselves.

“I don’t get the time in summer to fish RiverFest but I saw a few tickets for sale and had heard that the Weaver was fishing well, so fancied a go,” Lee says.

“I drew peg 2 on what’s called the old river, a good swim. It gets pleasure fished a lot, is wide and deep and a known bream area. There was a feeder and a pile of pellets in the peg when I got there, so that told me all I needed to know!”

Picking one line to fish the feeder at 30m, Lee used one as a negative swim with small baits and finely chopped worms through the feeder, the second being more positive with corn, 2mm pellets and rougher chopped worm fed. Kicking off on the negative line, he then moved on to the positive once he felt a few fish were about.

The rig that won

“The opening hour was slow, but I could see some bream rolling so I kept the faith and once I got a bite, things got better and better,” he continues.

“By resting and rotating the swims, I had a great three hours catching around 25 fish before things fizzled out in the last hour. From people walking about, though, it seemed that no-one else was catching that well in the match, but you never know on a river with bream – it’s possible to catch 50lb in an hour!”