THE best week's weather of the year so far has not coincided with the best week's fishing. That's unfortunate, but not unexpected!

The unpredictable, but not inexplicable, form of most coarse fisheries at this time of year showed a little improvement over the previous week.

The warm weather has certainly had something to do with that, but it is still breeding time.

Surprisingly, perhaps, many trout fisheries displayed an opposite trend, with catches a little down -- but still not a bad week really.

The nice weather is set to continue throughout the weekend, which can only help the general trend from now on for much better catches all round.

Roach have shown surprisingly well on some enclosed waters and canals, but we have to expect bream to begin to make a significant appearance very soon now everywhere.

I like Hollingworth Lake at Littleborough, except when its really busy with other users and drinkers/strollers. Unfortunately the sunshine will have them all out this weekend.

Just over 16lbs won last week's match, attended by 39 anglers. It wasn't difficult fishing for winner Dean Turner, GTI Rochdale, but he had a busy day.

Bream did not feature and Dean netted over 100 roach using bronze maggot on 13-metre pole. The roach fed well and appeared everywhere.

Dean was pegged near the Beach pub but runner-up Mick Risby, with 15-8-0, drew by Rake Wood. To emphasise the even nature of the contest Bill Brierley took his third placed 14-10-0 from near the cafe.

The Leeds-Liverpool canal at Burscough is always one of the first stretches to show bream, but not that much earlier than round here -- maybe just a couple of weeks.

That gives me good grounds to expect some decent weights soon, since hungry bream produced some great weights for the latest Van Den Eynde Crow Spring League.

First match winner (this was the fifth of the series) Alan Talbot won for the second time with 24-8-6 of decent fish from his bush peg in the town centre.

Double caster, presented right across to the cover, produced just nine fish.

Runner-up, Paul Watkinson, had a little more of a 'mixed bag' with hybrids and skimmers joining four proper bream in his 23-6-8.

Caster was again the bait, but he was pegged right at the other end of the 180 peg match length, at the 'Piggeries.'

Double figures was just enough to make the frame in this one.

I have featured results from Bolton's Bradshaw Hall Fisheries of late, having had to acknowledge that this type of fishery is very popular, even though not my 'cup of tea.'

You cannot argue with the weights in matches and, having talked with a few pleasure anglers, the guarantee of fish for them.

Jumbles Reservoir is very close by the Bradshaw Fisheries, and is much more up my street.

I was discussing the two with an angler from Bolton this week and what he said about Jumbles really put things in some sort of perspective for me.

He said: "You know, I once had a dry net there and decided not to bother again."

I could hardly believe it, but I know he is not alone in his attitude. No wonder the canal at Feniscowles is not so attractive, eh!

Last week at Bradshaw Hall, the 62 peg match was one from peg eight on number four lodge by James Holland.

Fishing with pole and switched between meat and sweetcorn on the hook, he took a succession of small carp and skimmers with just a couple of 'bonus' 3lb carp in a 46-8-0 bag.

The runner-up had 38-14 of better quality fish from peg five on number 3 lodge, and Carl Cantello lost a fish that would have won it. Over 30lbs was needed to make the frame here and, though the old skills are not required, you can't really knock it.

I would have preferred to weight in the 8-14-8 of skimmers to punches, bread, that won the Keighley AS match at Silsden.

Unfortunately I didn't, with the honour falling to Pete Humphries at peg 137 (Jackson's). This was not a great match, with 3-9-4 only needed by Steve Parker in sixth place.

As I referred to earlier, trout bags have been a little down in general. That includes Pennine, though here the 9.4 fish rod average is as always, the country's best. Buzzers are worth using morning and evening. Try also Hare's Ear.

One of the best fish of the week, a quite old 10lbs brown trout, was taken by a local angler bank fishing -- on worm!

At 300 acres Esthwaite is big enough to have room for everybody and this is one of its great attractions of course.

The fly anglers 'in the know,' so to speak, have their own very special methods of presenting buzzers but more traditional methods work pretty well. You can expect over five fish, with evening buzzer fishing on floating lines very productive.