Battle commenced early this year at the prolific Red Hill fishery in Monmouth with nine teams from across the region competing over six rounds, in the new format Forest Fours angling championship on April 22nd

All nine teams fielded strong sides, with the three Iffers teams looking particularly dangerous. Alan Simmonds is a consistent performer and when he drew the same peg as he won from last week in an Iffers club match his confidence was high. However the fish came late for him but a run of sizeable carp in the last hour saw him storm to the overall win from Sophie's Lake.

His team captain, Andy Prosser, also put in an excellent day's work to take Molly's Lake and second overall, helped by some big fish fairly late in the day from the margins.

Third spot went to Glory Boys, Martin Chandler from Sophie's peg 2 who fished long pole to take carp steadily through the day.

However, the performance of the match was arguably by Iffers Red skipper, Glyn Sherwood, who put over 74lbs on the scales with almost half being small roach to take fourth overall and second in section.

Top rod on Penny's Lake was Greg Roberts, also of Iffers Red. Iffers Blue were clear winners on the day from Iffers Red, with Glory Boys and Rebels sharing third spot. New team, Bream Reapers got a very respectable result, but possibly the shock of the day, was the team winners of the last two years, Wye Angling, plummeting to sixth.

The next round is on May 6th, where the teams will be split over two venues, Lightmoor Pool, near Cinderford, and Lydney Lake.