By KINGFISHER

THE fantastic fishing continued through last weekend, as expected, with great match and pleasure catches from still waters.

The weather may have turned more autumnal this week, but there is no reason to be less than optimistic for the week ahead.

Local matchmen were in good form and Hyndburn's Dave Pickering heads the list, not for the first time, with a weekend winning double.

He was at his favourite Greenhalgh on Saturday where hair-rigged paste on peg five enabled him to take a succession of carp and finish with an admirable 121-14-0 to win quite comfortably.

Sunday saw him drawing a peg, along with 73 others, at Copthorne for the latest match in the Premier League series at the fishery.

His number was 27 and, faced with nothing more than two straight banks, he decided to pole fish across to the far shelf, some 16 metres away.

He chose paste as his main hookbait, occasionally switching to worm, whilst feeding pellet and it was carp that dominated his winning 74-8-0.

Runner-up in the same match was the in-form Foulridge angler John Clapham, but his catch and method may be of particular interest.

John is very keen ton use bread on commercial fisheries believing it has the edge over paste or pellet in terms of its fish catching potential, with the added bonus that it is a much easier bait to use.

His success this season makes for a very powerful argument and pole-fished bread is what he used on Sunday to take 61-0-0 from peg seven, including the biggest fish of the day - a nice nine-pounder.

That was enough to see-off the challenge of another local matchman, Todmorden's Simon Beswick, who put 58-12-0 on the scales, to take third place and added to a place in a match at Brookside in made it a memorable week for Clapham.

Saturday's match at Copthorne was not as productive and Danny McGuire taking top spot with a worm-caught carp catch of 42-0-0, from peg 22. Nelson's Dave Phillips was the runner-up in this one, with 34-8-0.

Hyndburn's own James Boys were snatching the cash at Hebden Bridge, where the Rochdale Canal was in reasonable, though patchy, form. 62 anglers had turned up in the hope of taking the Golden Peg pot, so it was a decent pool that was well worth winning.

Trevor it was who headed the field, with 13-8-0. He drew on the famous Moderna length, from where the winner was expected, with bream or tench most likely to figure strongly. Trevor knows this of course and fed, with casters, accordingly from the outset.

He had just five fish, bream, in his net at the finish but they weighed 13-8-0 for what, on the face of it, appears a comfortable win. The runner-up, pegged two away from Trevor, could muster only 10-13-0 but the weights do not tell the whole story.

He, John Howcroft, also knows the score on here and, pegged just two away from Trevor, he too went for the big ones. He could only get four of them, so it was then that just one bite decided the outcome of this match. Trevor's brother Kevin also managed bream (and tench) for 8-1-0 and third place.

Following the excellent match result at Foulridge Res a couple of weeks ago, and some brilliant pleasure nets, there was an increased entry list for the teAMS H&B open match on Sunday. They were not to be disappointed, thankfully. It fished well, though big bream were not to figure greatly. Big skimmers, up to about a pound and a half, were eager to feed and rods were arching all day long.

The winner, Darren Stock, was one of the very lucky ones in that he did latch on to four decent fish. They added to a succession of skimmers for the Bury rod and made the outcome of the match a foregone conclusion. His final tally was 50-4-0.