BIG fish have dominated the last two Malvern United Angling Association's matches held.

In the clubs open contest on the Avon at Birlingham, the river was in dour mood, with most contestants struggling for bites and it took only one good chub to win the match.

The captor was club treasurer John Shaw, who after a biteless few hours on the feeder on peg 18 decided to set up some float tackle with a lump of luncheon meat on the hook, more in hope than expectation.

To his surprise it wasn't long before the float bobbed and slipped away, after a short fight the chub was landed and tipped the scales at 3-1-0 to give John the win.

Second place went to born again' angler Ray Bishop, Ray also included a nice chub in his float caught 2-14-0 net.

Neil Humpage pole fished his way to 2-6-0 of small roach for third place.

Section winners were Mick Harris 1-2-0 and Ian Goddard 1-12-0.

The Roy Bouston Memorial contest was very well attended with anglers from Malvern and Hanley Castle clubs joining together to remember a popular member of both clubs.

This year it was the turn of Malvern to host the match, so it was held on their stretch of the Severn at Holdfast.

Overcast conditions and a little colour in the river raised hopes for a good catch but it was a struggle for most, with odd big fish being caught along the stretch but nobody managing to put together a large weight.

Big fish expert Dave Green caught the fish of a lifetime to take this one. Drawn on peg 24 Dave fished groundbait feeder tactics targeting bream but halfway through the contest his hookbait was picked up by a large barbel, a titanic struggle ensued with the fish swimming up and down river for sometime before Dave finally landed it.

At the weigh-in the fished pulled the scales round to an incredible 11-4-0 a fish worthy of winning any contest and combined with the rest of his catch gave Dave a winning weight of 14-7-0. A long way behind in second place was Ian Goddard with 4-13-0 consisting of one good bream and a small skimmer, from peg 16.

John Barr also landed a good bream which was good enough to give him third place with 4-11-0 Section winners were Mick Harris 3-12-0 Mike Spragg 4-4-0 Neil Humpage 3-9-0 Thanks once again must go to Ellen from Alan's Tackle in Worcester for very generously donating £100 of tackle vouchers to the winners.

The next MUAA contest is the pairs cup on Sunday, October 29, to be fished on the Avon at Birlingham. Pairs will be drawn at random on the day.

Draw time is 8am, fish 9am-2pm.