By Kingfisher

IT IS hardly surprising that catches from most local venues, including the canal, were not that good. Following a much better week Weather-wise, prospects are much improved.

To be honest there were relatively few anglers about last weekend, though more have taken advantage of the improving weather through the week.

Those that were found the going tough. There were, as expected, some fish willing to feed on the canal locally, but they were tightly shoaled up and not in large quantities. It was very much a case of the luck of the draw.

I know I have advised pleasure anglers to move on if no bites are forthcoming within an hour or so, and that is good advice. There is however, a limit to the number of times you are prepared to move -- before the next move is home.

With so few anglers out and about it's impossible to have identified any decent pegs for you to target, with any reasonable honesty. My advice then, has to be to stick with those identified last week, and hope for the best.

That means Burnley's Straight Mile and Barden Lane sections of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. Also the Preston town stretches of Lancaster Canal and you could add to these the Rufford Arm of the Leeds-Liverpool at Tarleton which has started to produce quality roach to breadpunch. Though you must not tackle any of these without breadpunch, Tarleton is the only one I would consider visiting without caster.

As far as the pleasure angler is concerned then, for quality fish, caster has to be the bait. In fact caster has been producing matchmens fish, those in the 2/3 ounce bracket, as well as the half pound plus fish most of us are after.

Matchmen cannot, of course, pack up and go home when they want (if it's a team competition they're fishing), though many must have felt that way last week.

Unfortunately, none of our local heroes were able, as far as I can ascertain, to trouble the man handing out the money -- perhaps next week.

96 anglers turned up to fish the Kraft Arm of the Bridgewater Canal in Manchester on Sunday, for the final round of the North West Weathercall Winter League. It was, for the most part, a particularly dour affair.

Even the winner, Saints' Derek Bennett, was disappointed to only need 6-8-2 to take the first prize. He had an excellent peg, right behind Old Trafford football ground, and tackled it with caster from the off knowing there are good fish to be had here. He won fairly comfortably from Tri-Cast Highfield's Dave Chadwick who missed out on being overall Top Rod by just two points.

The League Champions are Saints (again) with GTI Gold in runners-up spot.

The Lancashire division of the same league is incomplete and they fish tomorrow on the Stretford section of the same canal. If last weekend's practise is anything to go by, it will be a struggle for the 9- anglers, with bloodworm the most likely to produce the goods (but can they ignore caster)? Graham Carter is a very, very good angler, especially with bloodworm, yet only 3-9-2 of small roach and perch were in his net at the end -- and worth the winner's purse.

We had some local interest in the KL Tackle Open on the Leeds-Liverpool at Silsden (W Yorks), and here gain the going was tough.

The 6-1-0 of winner Gareth Drury (KL Tackle) was fair enough, a couple of bream and some roach on breadpunch from the gasworks length, but the rest were, again, very disappointing. The runner-up had a smashing 2lbs perch on worm but totalled only 2-14-0.

Colne's Dave Wells (Tri-Cast Calder) made the frame in fourth place with only 2-4-0.

I think all these venues will improve this coming weekend, including Silsden, and I wouldn't hesitate to give it a go. Even if you don't have any casters you should catch a few from any of the venues mentioned.