Fresh after qualifying for the Feedermasters Final last week, in-form Simon Willsmore has now made it through to the Riverfest Final for the third consecutive year. Here’s how he did it: 

The River Yare at Langley had been heavily fished since my last visit, so I wanted to draw in the middle zone where there were no end pegs and weights would be low. Luckily I drew peg 92 in the this zone, but it didn’t look great as the banks were quite open and the pegging tight compared with the rest of the section.

In these matches you need to be well prepared and fish well but the biggest thing is to make the right choices on your tactics. The river looked low and clear so I decided to fish the pole from the start and hope for the best. A weight of 11lb had won my 20-peg zone the day before on the open, so that was my target weight.

I balled it with groundbait at the start and then cupped regularly over the top with sticky groundbait full of bait. Tackle wise I fished a 1.5g and 2g AS7 floats to a size 18 Fine Match hook on 0.09mm Supplex Fluorocarbon with a No5 elastic in my Acolyte pole.

A steady day with bites throughout apart from a bit of pike trouble gave me 12lb 10oz and a ticket for the final. I love these big finals. Both the Riverfest and Feedermasters competitions have really spiced up the match fishing calender and long may they continue!