THE awful weather of the past week or so has ensured that anglers have, in the main, been both uncomfortable and unsuccessful.

It's difficult to imagine it being much better this weekend though, with a fair amount of fresh water having entered the Ribble, a big barbel may just be on the cards for someone. Find a sheltered spot with a small eddy about four feet deep just off the main flow, put a couple of lobworms on a size eight or six hook, and it could be you.

Otherwise you may have to be satisfied with typically poor winter catches. The canal in particular promises little, and your best bet may be the deeper water of some local lakes or reservoirs.

Commercial fisheries nearby are a possibility worth consideration if the weather is at least calm. Stocking density is such that you're sure of a few fish, with double figures a definite possibility. You all know I am not in favour of this type of fishery but - if needs must. Apart from this type of fishery you will not find things easy this weekend, and even here be circumspect with your approach.

Nowhere should you go at it like a bull at a gate. Feed very, very sparingly until you get a bite or two. Increase the feed, whatever it is you have chosen, only in line with the success you're having.

I didn't see many pleasure anglers out and about last week, in fact if I had, I would have been very surprised. With the conditions we have had I'm sure that pleasure is not the way to describe any session.

Match anglers, if they want to compete, have no choice. There were, however, many of the less hardy souls packing up before the end on many matches last weekend. Burnley's Darren Foreman most certainly was not one of them. He, and 107 others fished a difficult Pennine Winter League match on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. His two small perch wouldn't have gained many section points even, never mind win the match, but a sizeable carp took a fancy to his caster and put him well clear of the field.

Together they weighed 6-4-0, over 2lbs clear of the individual runner-up Jason Hirst (Halifax), who also needed a bonus fish (a bream of some 3lbs) to boost his weight to 3-13-8. Hyndburn's Mick Teale was the best of the anglers without a bonus, totalling 3-10-8.

Darren's team, GTI Rochdale, finished well off the pace in the team stakes, in third place with 130 points. Todmorden however, despite having only one angler in the top six, did brilliantly to win with 146 points and set up a possible famous overall victory.

With just one match to go Todmorden lie now just two points behind GTI Rochdale at the top. It's unlikely that any other teams will be involved in the final shake-up, but it should be quite exciting.

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Parbold was the venue for the latest round of the Wigan Winter League and, like everywhere else, it proved difficult though not so difficult as some.

Our local team in the league, Geoff Done Tackle of Blackburn, were unable to challenge Crown, Wigan, Standish or Comtech at the top, but team-member Frank Rozo made the individual frame in fourth place.

The 5-6-0 of nice roach to caster, from a peg at Parbold Mill, by Alan Sagar (Van den Eynde Crown) looked to be a runaway winner - until team-mate Dave Massey hooked and landed a 4lbs bream at the death. Together with some small roach he had taken throughout the match on breadpunch, it made 6-0-8. Norman Finch (Horwich) had 3-15-10 and Frank's net was a reasonable 3-10-3.

Closer to home 30 anglers braved the conditions to fish the Leeds and Liverpool canal at Rishton, in a Hyndburn & Blackburn AA Open match. The great weights we saw from here last year have yet to materialise, and the fish are small.

Team Normark's Richard Carrette, in fact, had 140 roach to breadpunch for a winning 4-8-8. Burnley's Kass Jedd will catch big fish if they're there but totalled just 3-4-0 for second spot, and Lostock's Graham Edgerly was in third place with 3-1-0.

There are so many fish along here, particularly the concrete, that bites are guaranteed of conditions are anything like.

I'm most certainly not going to recommend anywhere this week. The fishing is far less predictable than even the weather is at the moment - but I know it will be warm by the fireside.

I'm sure a settled spell of weather will come along soon - and I know that nets will bulge (with chub on the Ribble) when it does. The sun will shine and, despite it being December, I will be sat there in my shirtsleeves hitting bite after bite - and then I have to waken up.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.