with KINGFISHER

EVEN the Rochdale Canal at Hebden Bridge was in good form last weekend, as many venues benefited from much improved conditions. No broken poles to report this week either, just plenty of fish.

Matchmen and pleasure anglers alike enjoyed some pretty good sport, particularly on the canals. Roach, in particular, fed well with some decent specimens falling to caster under almost ideal conditions for the bait, though there were plenty of fish for simple punch tactics -- fished down the boat channel.

Back to the Rochdale Canal then and, perhaps not surprisingly give its reputation and recent form, only 40 competitors lined the banks for the latest Hebden "Golden Peg" match. There were a number of local anglers among them but none, unfortunately, in the frame at the finish of an excellent contest. I suspect there will be more for the next one and it seems a venue that should be added to the "pleasure session" list.

At least the main honours did go to a Lancastrian, though he was not on the golden peg, in the form of Little Lever canal expert Bob Rothwell. He took fish to a pound, alternating bread and caster, in a very nice net indeed that totalled 10-11-0. Club-mate John Walker was next with 7-6-0 and the caster expert himself, George Colbran, was close with 6-12-0. Top pegs here are on the long tunnel, around 496 to be specific.

It was not that good on the Aire and Calder Navigation at Thornhill, where the latest round of the Mosella Pennine winter League took place, but it was not so bad. Plenty of local interest in this one as well and some of them were in the money. The winner, with 5-8-0, was Ian Fieldhouse from Leeds but Todmorden's Paul Smith, fishing for Tri-Cast Rochdale Black certainly made it a close run affair.

The winner used big maggot, fishing to a far side reedbed, to take an all-perch net but Paul had other fish in mind. Setting his stall out specifically to target fish he knew to be resident in large numbers, four metre whip and pinkie, he was soon into gudgeon ending up with a netful weighing 5-7-8 and just two or three fish short of the victory he surely deserved. Tony Price was third with 3-10-0 and Burnley's Darren Foreman joined team-mate Smith in the frame with 3-7-0.

Not surprisingly, with two in the top four, Tri-Cast Rochdale Black won the day and move into a slender overall lead.

There are a number of local matchmen, fishing for various teams, in the Lancashire Winter League. Their match the previous week, you may recall, was abandoned half way through. They were on the "Lanky" last week in Preston and found the going much easier. The catches were pretty fantastic as well, or at least one of them was.

Pegged close to the Bexhill Road boat-basin Leon Green, fishing for Leyland, started out in the typical "Lanky" way. That is down the centre, with bloodworm, looking for ruffe. It was not going too well and after just 40 minutes he switched across in search of bigger fish. He had fed a line at 11/12 metres with a mix of joker/caster and within minutes of going over it he was landing the first of no less than 23 bream. They weighed 23-3-8 and gave him a very easy win, obviously. Double caster proved to be the downfall of many of them as Leon forsake the "little red men."

The rest of the anglers were clearly fishing a different match, but that turned out very reasonable as well. Both roach and bream figured in some decent weights, led by the 9-9-2 of Colin Mayor, with Dave Rose bringing 9-7-8 to the scales.

Pleasure anglers should not overlook these town stretches of Lancaster Canal. They provide some consistent fishing during the winter, when the boats are not active, and are well worth a look. Staff at Carter's tackle shop in Preston will be happy, I'm sure, to advise of the best pegs and you could always buy a few casters (though you can get away with using bread only)!

With the fish tightly shoaled at some commercial fisheries, as they are at Bradshaw hall, for example, a trip to the canal here might just fit the bill -- and it is cheaper.

You might fancy a go for the Ribble's chub though, with them feeding as heavily as they are.

Big bags of fish in the 2/3lbs range are being reported taken from pegs right through the middle reaches, with bread the top bait. With many anglers targeting specimen fish over the past couple of years, or more, these middle range fish have fared well.