Omens are good for Damien

THE opening round of the Octoplus Blackburn Saturday League, held on the canal through Blackburn last week, turned out to be something of a disappointment for our top local teams.

Fresh from their dual successes the previous week, winning the first and second divisions respectively of the big Standish Autumn League, Springview and Octoplus Blackburn would have been expecting a repeat performance on their own patch, but their optimism was misplaced.

Typical winter tactics of caster fished down the track proved to be the winning method and it was one of the Springview anglers, Mick Davis, who emerged triumphant on a difficult day.

Pegged behind the Silicone Engineering works, he took eight decent roach, plus a few smaller samples, to total 4-5-2. Damien Brierley knows the stretch well and, pegged just two from the winner, took second with a similar net of fish to the same method for a total of 3-14-15.

Brierley fishes for the Drennan North West squad and it was they who triumphed in the team stakes, four points clear of Ted Carter Southport and a further four ahead of Saints. Alan Lord was tops for Octoplus Blackburn with his 3-9-5 worth fourth place individually.

After looking all over bar the shouting the Pennine Winter League managed to hot up a bit last week, as runaway leaders Tri-Cast Rochdale Black hit rock bottom at Todmorden, where the fourth round of the event was staged.

Few anglers know the water better than Pro-Fish UK angler Gary Smith. He put all his knowledge and expertise to good use, fishing breadpunch down the centre to take 8-9-0 of skimmers and the individual top prize.

It was a pretty good day's fishing on the Rochdale Canal for the 72 competitors, weighing in a tremendous 280lbs of fish between them. They were not all skimmers of course, as roach also responded well to both breadpunch and caster, though the odd bream to 3lbs also helped that average.

The Tri-Cast Rochdale Black team is largely made up by matchmen from this area, as you are probably aware, and they too know the water well. Their failure then is all the more surprising, with only Nelson's Dave Wells making any impression, with 6-14-8 for sixth place.

Many fisheries did well last weekend, like Greenhalgh for example, whilst others, Pendle View amongst them, struggled. Only the weather - an influx of cold water maybe - is a possible culprit and, with it being a bit more settled this week, results from this and similar fisheries should improve.

Greenhalgh will struggle to improve from an impressive showing which saw matchweights close to the ton recorded. Quality fish, plenty of them, are falling to pole/paste from all pegs and matchmen are being separated only by the odd fish. Of course when the carp reach 12lbs the odd fish makes quite a difference!