Angling, with KINGFISHER

LOCAL matchmen led the way again last weekend, with the top performance from the Darwen Loyals team in the Angling Times/Van Den Eynde Clubman Supercup Northern semi-final.

The venue was the relatively little known and imposing Baden Hall Fishery in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, where the eight pools cover some 30 acres and can accommodate 275 anglers. Like most commercial fisheries, carp tend to dominate, but there are loads of silver fish if they fail to oblige on the day.

As it turned out, despite very decent conditions, the match was a significant disappointment for many of the competitors as the carp did indeed fail to show in large numbers. The Loyals had sorted the venue during three weeks of practice and had done very well, but were prepared for anything.

They had, as captain Stuart Barrett explained, decided that they would only go for the silver fish as the very last resort, but all the lads had great confidence in getting a carp or two out and did not bother. The practice was, however, vital as one of the best methods on the venue was strange to all of them - the 'Bagging Waggler'.

The Dam Pool produced several blanks on the day but Darwen managed to pick up two section wins on it, by virtue of excellent performances from two Greenhalgh experts; Dave Pickering and John Rogers.

As all the results were compiled at the end of the match it became clear that it had been a very close affair, especially for Darwen. The winners, Selby, totalled 33 penalty points to win fairly comfortably. Darwen had 38, but so had Swale AC so a section countback was ordered. That gave the runners-up spot to our lads, a great reward for a great team performance and one we hope that they can repeat in the final.

Local anglers look likely to fare well in the upcoming First Division National on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, if practice results are any indication. You might recall that Colne's Paul Smith won the last one, fishing for his Tri-Cast Rochdale Team. This week it was the turn of Burnley's Andy Shirtliffe, fishing for the same team, to cause a stir.

Fishing pole, with worm on the hook, Andy took eight chub for a 16-2-8 total worth third place. Bream failed to show in any numbers at all this week and all the anglers in the frame weighed in chub. Andy was just one small fish short of the runners-up spot (10 ounces) but the winner was almost 10 lbs clear.

Hyndburn & Blackburn's Ian Whalley was the winner of the latest round of the Copthorne Premier League, following an exciting peg for peg duel with the runner-up. They were pegged on the new extension to the canal pool where they found carp to five pounds feeding. Both used catmeat on the hook, alternating with paste, fished at eight metres matching each other, fish for fish, throughout the match. At the weigh-in, Ian's 53-11-0 took the honours - by just a pound or so.

The River Weaver has some very large shoals of big roach, which respond well to the hemp/tare approach favoured by many in the late summer.

It is not so good early on however, with bream being the main target - unless you are on a known carp hotspot. If you cannot get the bream then small skimmers and eels are the target, with squats and casters.

It was not so good last week, as teAMS H&B anglers A Lord and D Massey found out, though they did make their efforts pay by finishing in third and fourth place respectively, with just 5-12-0 and 5-0-0.