Caerphilly angler is the big cheese at Festival

May 1 2008 by Anthony Woolford, South Wales Echo

NEIL Morgan, from Caerphilly, turned in a great performance to win the three-day Spring Festival at Holgan Farm against a field of anglers from various parts of Britain, who travel each year for this popular fixture.

Competitors rotated around the three lakes and he got off to a good start in the Monday match when he drew on the Match Lake and collected maximum points by having the best catch of 49lb 14oz.

The Wednesday match saw him in fourth place on the Carp Lake and in the Friday match he was third on the Tench Lake to end with eight penalty points.

Northampton competitor Chris Barley had the same number of points, but Morgan took the title with an aggregate weight of 157lb 10oz, while Barley totalled 146lb.

Fresh back from the festival, Morgan was in the line up for the Cefn Forest AC match on Somerset’s Emerald Pools, but his efforts to clock up another win were thwarted by 14-year-old Tom Pitchford, from Blackwood, who won the match with 91lb 4oz of carp.

Morgan had to settle for second place with 79lb 12oz and Gareth Hartley was third with 78lb 3oz.

The Howard Green success story continued at Cefn Mably Lakes where the Pontllanfraith tackle shop owner put exactly 80lb of carp on the scales to win the midweek open.

Merthyr’s Brian Protheroe was second with 70lb 4oz and Shaun Wilson third with 66lb 14oz.

The next day Green was in Tewkesbury for the open match at Hillview Fishery.

Two Birmingham competitors filled first and second place with 94lb and 83lb, but he was third with 67lb 11oz while another Pontllanfraith angler, Lyn Jones, pocketed section prize money with catch of 34lb 11oz.

Shaun Wilson, from Trethomas, just failed to repeat his win in the previous match when local angler Mark Goodall put 78lb 5oz of carp on the scales at the end of the White Springs Open on the fishery’s Old Canal.

He had 71lb 4oz for runner-up spot and was followed by Blackwood’s Ian Exall with 70lb 3oz.

The third round of the Fish4Wales Spring League was fished at Sylen Lakes and won by Peter Williams with a 24lb 4oz mixture of carp, bream and roach.

Keith Fellowes was runner-up with 21lb 1oz and Ryan Hughes third with 16lb 10oz.  

Team Garry Evans member Neil Harrington is well in contention for the overall title after winning the fourth of the six-match Newport Spring Series at Woodstock Pond.

He drew peg 38 near the car park where pellets pole fished along the margin brought him 35lb 8oz of F1 carp.

Jeff Parfitt, from Risca, added to his points when 30lb 2oz put him in second place while Robbie Preece is also piling on the points after his third best 28lb 9oz.

Pontymister AC opened the match calendar with a fixture on the canal at Cross Keys, which was won by Paul Clarke.

On his local stretch at Halls Road he used pellets as bait to catch a 1.25lb bream and enough roach for a final tally of 4lb 12oz.

Johnathon Cooper, from Risca, caught over 100 small roach on punched bread for the second best weight of 4lb 2oz while his older brother Chris came in third with 3lb 13oz.

The junior competition was won by Chloe Walters, from Cross Keys, with 1lb 8oz of small roach.

echo.sport@mediawales.co.uk