MALVERN Anglers held their Club Cup match on the River Severn at Holdfast after the long-anticipated start of the river fishing season.

But with low water levels and an intensely hot sunny day prospects of heavy catches were dashed.

All anglers struggled for bites and to stay cool as temperatures soared towards 30 degrees and unsurprisingly weights were disappointing.

But Nigel Bayliss, fishing a somewhat snaggy peg at the upstream end of the water, was persistent enough in the hot conditions to tempt a bream of more than 4lb on a feeder-fished pinky maggot.

This together with some other small fish gave him a winning weight of 5lb 7oz 0dr.

A little way downstream Ian Goddard found a few skimmer bream of up to 1lb each to finish a close second with 5-0.

This weight was some way ahead of the rest of the field who generally had various numbers of smaller fish.

Paul Lane caught 3-1, Steve Warren 1-10, Chris Loveridge 1-0, G Kennett 0-8, John Wagstaff 0-8 and Luke Richards 0-6.