It proved to be a frustratingly slow day for Braintree and Bocking Angling Society members on the Hobbs Croft Lake at the Fennes but Reece Hearn bucked the trend by landing fish throughout for a match-winning total.

Angling is certainly unpredictable, especially at this time of year, but Hobbs Croft Lake normally provides good weights in the winter.

However, that isn’t always so as it seemed devoid of fish except for one area behind the island and in the last hour the fish moved along from peg to peg, leaving one angler without a bite for the full six hours.

Hearn was on the first peg and caught in spells throughout the match to record a winning total of 10-10-0.

Sections (excluding winner): 1 A Townley 3-1-0, 2 G Spong 9-6-0 one carp.

Anglers from Braintree and Bocking, Colne Angling Society and Bills Tackle joined the match at Rayne Lodge run by Danny Rampley in their most recent match and plenty of carp were caught.

Steve Daniels won the match with 99-12-0 from peg one on the Top lake, which isn’t a hot peg but is an area that has produced some good weights in the recent cold spell.

Second, from peg 13 on the Middle lake, was Jamie Derry (Bills Tackle) 83-4-0 and Trevor Davies completed the frame with 81-8-0 on Top 21.

Sections (excluding top three): Top: 1 T Harden 79-8-0, 2 J Smith (Colne AS) 69-4-0, 3 D Harden 43-0-0, Middle 4 J Collop (Bills Tackle) 66-0-0, 5 N Hood (Colne AS) 51-0-0.

Jim Loosley has been the winner of the last two Friday Sweeps at Notley, thanks to one carp on each match.

His first win was with the help of a mirror carp to boost his weight to 6-8-0, beating Pete Thompson, who also had a mirror in his second-placed 3-8-0.

Loosley then landed a common on the next match to give him top weight of 6-9-0 and Bob Percival had two F1s for 2-8-0 and second spot.