By Kingfisher

THERE were plenty of anglers out last weekend, despite the atrocious weather, with many of them well rewarded for their efforts.

Saturday was, in fact, a very pleasant day and, with the rivers in fine fettle, this was the place to be. Sunday was a different proposition, with incessant rain in places pushing up the river levels and sheltered pegs anywhere at a premium. Nevertheless fish were caught.

That rain has, as we all know, continued throughout the week and I suspect the river will take time to recover. If you can find a reasonable peg, however, chub may well be willing to feed. Lobworm would be my number one choice, legered out of the main flow.

Local stretches of canal have continued to show good form, though the atrocious weather on Sunday meant the excellent weights of Saturday were impossible to match. Four or five pounds will be an excellent weight this weekend but, once again, the fish will be tightly shoaled.

The same approach that I have been advocating for weeks now will give you the best chance of taking more than just the odd fish.

Bear in mind that, particularly with bread as hookbait, if the fish are present in your chosen peg you will start to catch almost immediately if you don't then move on.

Any of the normally productive lengths are worth a try. Though bread-punch would be my starting method this would be simply to assess the potential of the peg. Caster is by far the best bait with which to build a good weight of both roach and skimmers locally, and it would not be long before I switched to the "shell." There were matches fished last Sunday, with plenty of anglers seemingly prepared to be allocated a peg whether or not it contained fish or was in any way comfortable (were there any comfortable pegs last Sunday?) Weights were low - but perhaps not as low as expected.

Hyndburn Match Group held an open on the canal at Clayton and 38 anglers braved the elements. There were, as you would expect, plenty of local lads among them but it was an "off cum'd un" from Yorkshire who made off with the main prize.

Byron Dell, who fishes for Leeds team Shimano, made the most of a partially sheltered peg by the "wall" to take 4-2-8 of roach on both bread-punch and caster.

Trevor James (GTI) was second with a similar catch, on similar tactics for 4-0-12 from just two pegs away.

Langroyd's Steve Fothergill had 2-10-12 with Colin Duckett (Southport) close on 2-6-4. Andrew Shirtliffe was the top performer for the organising "club" with 2-4-12. No less than 74 turned up for the latest Hebden open, where the Moderna section not only provided the winner but all the main prizewinners. Bream, as usual, were the key fish with caster the successful bait.

The top three performers were just four pegs apart and Dave Moffat (Watercraft Idle) had three bream for 7-8-0 from peg 197. On 195 Bradford's Richard O'Connor had two for 4-4-8 and on 194 Dave Colbran (Team Dons) had two for 3-14-0. No one is admitting to fishing 196!

If you fancy being a bit more active this weekend, and ready for a quick "getaway" if the weather turns nasty, try plug fishing the canal for pike. I have heard anglers taking six or seven fish up to double figures in just an afternoon. Anywhere you find roach now you will find pike.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.