Their match against Colne Angling Society was hosted by Braintree and Bocking Angling Society on their Pebmarsh lake, but it was the visitors who made full use of the roach that made an appearance.

The roach saved what could’ve been a hard match and Colne’s anglers had them as back-up weights as they came out 91-78 winners.

Braintree’s Bob Percival got the hosts off to the best possible start in taking first place, with four carp weighing 20-6-0.

Home side members filled the next two places, with Dave Richardson weighing 16-3-0 for second and Justin Smith 14-10-0 for third and Braintree members took all three sections.

RESULTS: Section one: J Hannington 10-13-0; Section two: J Loosley 10-4-0; Section three G Spong 13-12-0.

Braintree members joined the Danny Rampley-run match on Rayne Lodge Top and Middle lakes where the carp fed well.

Julian Collop drew peg four on the Top lake, which was the day’s ‘Golden Peg’ and just sneaked the win, along with the money, by weighing 113-4-0.

Rampley needed one more decent-sized fish to take the win, but on 111-0-0 had to be content with second and Alan Lee also came close with 109-8-0 for third.

Sections (excluding top three): Top lake: 1 D Field 70-0-0, 2 D Harden 37-4-0, 3 T Davies 101-0-0; Bottom Lake: 4 P Thompson 74-12-0, 5 S Daniels 90-8-0.

The Friday Sweeps at Notley seem to have developed a pattern, with a slow start and then gradually more fish caught with carp deciding the outcome.

Pete Thompson had one of around five pounds boosting his weight to 9-0-0 to beat Jim Loosley into second place with 5-0-0 and then on the most recent outing, John Daniels returned to winning ways with a clear win, netting four carp and two F1s for a total of 14-8-0.

This time, Loosley had a single carp of 7-4-0 – the biggest recorded so far – to take second with 9-10-0.