Fancy fishing a 40-peg match with £1,000 up for grabs?

It sounds too good to be true but this is the tempting prize on offer at Raker Lake on Bank Holiday Monday.

Internet fishing tackle company Rods and Sods are backing a series of events across the country to publicise their new on-line venture.

The contest, which will be fished on both Horseshoe and Acorn Lakes, is limited to 40 places who will fish in a novel match concept. The match will start with 20 anglers on each lake who will fish a three-hour contest.

After a weigh-in they will swap places and fish another three hours on the other lake. The highest combined weight after six hours of competition gets to grab the £1,000.

The venue is in top form at present with plenty of big pleasure catches being banked. Best catch this week fell to George Pickering fishing from peg 22. A margin attack with corn saw him bank 37 crucians averaging over a pound apiece and 17 carp up to 6lb.

Pegs seven and 13 on Acorn are also worth a try with lots of carp and crucians falling to maggot or corn fished tight to the reeds.

At Carpvale, Kevin Whincup, still smarting from handing over the £100 to Dave Wright last week after breaking the lake record, reports that pleasure anglers are bagging on the front pond with pole or waggler securing a fish or chuck.

On the main lake the big carp are still prowling below the surface with bread or floating pellets taking plenty of fish from pegs 49, 17, 18, 29 and 33.

The return to more normal summer conditions last week, rain and more rain, may well put a dampener on sport temporarily. However, the storm clouds may not be without a silver lining. Fish were beginning to show an interest in matters nuptial last week which led to a loss of feeding appetite.

The cooling rain should have quenched their ardour sufficiently to have the fishes' minds focused squarely on the next meal.

There is plenty of action around the area with matches at Carpvale, Raker, Oaktree, The Willows and Woodlands to name but a few.

Anglers fishing over the Bank Holiday weekend should be warned.

The Environment Agency today announced it is to blitz anglers fishing without a rod licence, following an upsurge in licence evasion.

Over the Spring Bank Holiday, Agency fisheries officers checked the licences of thousands of anglers around England and Wales and one in every ten anglers was unable to produce an Environment Agency rod licence - as required by the law.

The evasion rate varied around the country but was highest in the south east of England; in one area which included part of London 30 per cent of anglers failed to produce a licence.

Environment Agency Head of Fisheries David Clarke said: "We are extremely concerned. Over the past few years licence evasion had been dropping. Now it has suddenly increased.

"This is a great shame. Not only are licence evaders committing an offence but they are cheating on their fellow anglers who have bought a licence. Selling fewer licences means less income for improvements to fisheries. It also means that we will have to spend more of our resources on checking licences.

"The foot and mouth disease restrictions may be partly to blame for anglers not renewing their licences. Many anglers did not renew in April because they weren't able to fish in certain areas. Now that the disease is in decline, fisheries have reopened and anglers have started fishing again, but not all have bought a new licence."

Anglers in North Yorkshire, however, are the best in the country when it comes to paying for licences with an evasion rate of just 4.7 per cent.

Updated: 12:03 Friday, May 25, 2001