SLIGHTLY cooler weather has not dampened the spirit of Lymm Angling Club members who have continued to catch more than their fair share of fish.

Fish of the week is undoubtedly Steve Daly's 23lbs-8ozs-0drms catfish from Lymmvale. Again he was an angler fishing for tench, only to be surprised by this whiskered wonderment which fell to his flavoured luncheon meat.

Steve's action followed a fairly slow night on Lymmvale with him, in hindsight, believing he was fishing it all wrong. However, the catfish made up for all that with him having to battle with it for 35 minutes before his angling companion was able to slip his landing net under it. Needless to say they were both back on the 'Vale' the next day.

The waters on Belmont Estate have been fishing extremely well with Willow Pool producing high numbers of bream, tench and carp.

Last Saturday, along with my wife, I gave this water a go and was soon landing good fish.

The carp in this water, primarily ghosties, are extremely vigorous and strong for their size and had me believe on several occasions that I was playing 7lbs fish, only to find that they were 4 -5lbs fish.

Ghost carp are the result of crossing koi carp with the more common varieties. It is widely believed, for whatever reason, that first crosses (F1's) are always more vigorous and powerful than each of the lines they are derived from.

While I was fishing Willow Pool, bailiff Sam Clark was fishing on Belmont Pool where he was doing very well, landing several carp doubles using his secret bait.

Despite interrogating him for half an hour he would not divulge his secret, but I did manage to steal a piece of his home made paste which produced my biggest fish on the pool.

Founders Pool is another water which had produced fish in excess of 20lbs, with this week's best being a common carp of 22-4-0.

This week the water has also produced bream to 5-0-0, roach to 1-8-0 and perch to 2-0-0. Make sure that you comply with all the instructions on the on-site signs.

Due to the apparent non-existence of pond life it has been decided to close Bentley Trout Pool to allow this life to recover.

Stocks have been run down to faciliate this, apologies to our members who will miss this facility while it is closed.

There is a bit of work required on this water. If you can help with some strimming, or woodwork, then please get in touch.

We are also looking for a second waterkeeper to assist on the waters of Belmont Estate.

I can be contacted on 411774.

Neil Jupp.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.