THE change in the weather, though very welcome, has not proven to be very beneficial in regard to catches from local waters.

Nevertheless, you can confidently expect to be successful to a degree this week.

The temperature has dropped a little too far and too quickly. I reckon that 20C is just about right through the summer months, and we have been as low as 16 this week. The breeze, being from the north and east, is uncomfortable and chilly. It needs to be in the south and west to be more favourable.

It would of course, be very uninteresting if we had ideal conditions all the time. Ideal conditions do prevail occasionally and the top anglers recognise them and take advantage.

In all other circumstances the top anglers use their knowledge, experience and expertise to do the best they can. Fishing is about the whole experience, not just catching fish.

Catching fish is however, very important. No one could argue that it isn't really, and the outstanding success of fish-stuffed commercial fisheries over the past few years is testimony to that.

What I mean is that you must not expect to catch loads of fish every time you go fishing. By learning about your local waters, by watching and talking to anglers with a wealth of knowledge - if you can find one who is willing to - you can improve your own chances. It can, and does, take years for many of the top local anglers to become regularly successful. Patience is indeed a virtue, as is perseverance. You will learn by making mistakes but, by being willing to try different baits and methods at different times, you may also stumble on the secret. Alternatively, you could fish a carp puddle.

Locally then you will know that hempseed is a key element in all the best catches, with the exception of bream. Having said that, I have taken bream on both hemp and tare in the past - but not a lot of them.

On stillwaters, the use of hemp usually means roach are the target, and just about any local stillwater you care to name is producing decent catches to the 'seed' at the moment.

Canals, both Leeds and Liverpool - including Rufford Arm - and Lancaster Canal (to a lesser degree) are fishing well for roach. Reservoirs Foulridge, Elton and Jumbles are each worth consideration with roach a target for fewer anglers than bream.

That's good news for you because, while they are all launching feeders into the distance, they are neglecting the water at nine or 10 metres. That means you can get out your pole and take a net of redfins, leaving the bream until you can't catch the roach any more.

I'm sure everyone by now knows how to fish with hempseed. There's no need for me to describe how to prepare it any more, for you can now get excellent seed in easy to open cans. It really is simple to push a seed on to the hook, and the use of a pole ensures you won't flick it off on the cast. Persevere with the bait - you will be rewarded. On our local rivers hempseed is almost exclusively used as feed. In fact anglers using on the hook, were they to be spotted, would definitely be regarded as strange to say the least.

For it's not roach that are the target, but those Hoovers of the fish world chub and barbel.

The nickname Hoover is not used lightly here. If you aren't aware both fish, even if alone, can get through pint of the stuff. For this reason it is often, quite rightly, reported that a big barbel was caught after laying down a bed of hempseed.

That really is what you must be prepared to do. Choose a suitable swim and put in two or three pints of cooked hempseed, spread over a tight area, and fish luncheon meat or sweetcorn over the top.

For my own part there would always be some samples, in with the hempseed, of the hookbait I am going to use. This would not be many for I want to make sure that attached to the hook is found.

It is a waiting game for individual big fish however, of some annoyance to many specimen hunters a shoal of smaller samples often finds the feed first. The bulk of us are not usually disappointed then.

Balderstone is a good section to try out this technique, though I am advised that there seem to be a reasonable number of dace and small chub around at the moment, so I may not be able to resist a stick float and caster approach.

I also note that many of the most successful bigger fish anglers are choosing to wade well out to get closer to their target swim, which may be mid-river. Leger is still the method, with meat over hempseed the bait, but the anglers area, in this way, able to find new swims amongst the streamer weed - unfishable from the bank.

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