LATEST ADDITIONS

Valley School from Worksop won the Angling Trust Daiwa Schools National Championship title for the fourth consecutive year running with a total of 107 points in the team classification. The team consisted of; Liam Ainsworth, Lewis Robinson, Robbie Moore, Dean Northage and Oliver Hipkiss. This is an incredible achievement for Valley to retain the gold medal for the last four years. In silver medal position was Carlton Community College from Barnsley with 89 points.

See who is through to the Evesham Festival in the latest round of qualifiers. . . Abu Garcia/Wychavon Qualifier69 FishedWith a little rainwater putting a tinge of colour in the water, this proved to be the best qualifier of the season so far, with a whopping 8-13-8 needed to make the frame!Coming out on top with a weight of 13-0-0 was Oxford rod Robin Cave, who plundered the rivers roach population from unfancied peg 49.

Dave Harrell runs the rule over the latest family of rods to come out of the Japanese tackle giant’s factory in Scotland… Every so often I find myself wondering if tackle companies can actually come up with anything new in terms of rod developments. The raw carbon fibre materials now being used haven’t changed significantly for a number of years so the only things that can be worked with are actions and cosmetics. This new family of six rods from Daiwa actually came about as a result of rods that the Scottish factory developed for the Italian market and, to use Daiwa’s words, they ‘break the rules of rod making. ’There’s no cork in sight on any of these new Airity rods as each one has a tapered butt section, which blends into its own sculptured handle and unique reel seat.

When anglers of the calibre of Darren Cox and Steve Cooke work together to design a rod range you can probably expect something pretty good. Dave Harrell takes a look at their work… Match rod actions are something that have interested me for many years and having been involved in rod designs and developments myself in a previous career I like to think I know a bit when it comes to passing judgement on them. This new range of four feeder rods has been developed by Darren Cox and Steve Cooke, two incredibly successful feeder anglers in their own rights with a long list of match wins behind them on various waters around the UK, so as you can probably imagine I was looking forward to having a look at the finished products when they arrived at the Match Fishing office. My first reaction when I took all four rods out of the bags and set them up was one of surprise, as I’d expected to waggle another set of soft, parabolic through-action rods, which seems to be the current trend with virtually every rod producer.