LYMM Angling Club's larger waters have been a little fickle over the last week.

Lymm Dam is the perfect example of this. On Saturday the NFA Women's regional championship match was fished on the Dam' and many struggled for fish. This was mainly due to its change in form.

A fortnight ago the winning tactic was pole-fished squats, with small amounts of feed reeled in regularly. The following week this tactic was overshadowed by feeder methods on the tip which found many match-winning bags of good sized bream.

On the day of the women's match the tip method failed to reap any rewards, leaving the competitors to change to the pole in order to land silver fish for the remainder of the match. Who knows what the best tactics will be in the future?

Congratulations to Warrington Anglers' Association' Marion Wharmby who was delighted with being the individual winner. She was also a member of the winning team.

Good luck to the senior match group, whose NFA Division One National competition will be taking place this coming Saturday on East Anglia's Great Ouse and River Cam. These are large slow running rivers once famous for their bream shoals. Unfortunately these shoals disappeared through the sixties and seventies, a situation considered by many to be due to the mismanagement of the then river authorities who pandered to the needs of boat owners by decimating weed beds and thus removing valuable spawning grounds.

Back on our own rivers, I am aware there is a ripple of concern about the performance of the River Severn, particularly the Rossall stretch. This has spurred me to contact some of our Severn specialists, who know the river of old. By and large their views are that there is little, or no change in its performance.

They all conclude that for some reason or other, this stretch is notorious for poor daytime fishing and that it starts waking up two to three hours before darkness continuing until approximately midnight.

This pattern of fishing is the exact opposite of the Atcham stretch, which seems to fish best during the day. IT's weird, specially when there is only a couple of miles between them!

On and around the pools, fishing has remained steady with many a good report from Village, Statham, New, Farm, Woodside, Founders, Sandy, Sandybank and Pools, with decent catches also reported from the waters on the Belmont Estate Complex.

Monday, 8pm, is the deadline for all annual meeting proposals and nominations. Please note that they must be in the hand of the secretary by this time and they must all be signed by the nominator and countersigned by two seconders, all of whom must be full members.

Please keep sending me your fishery reports.

I can be contacted on 411774.

NEIL JUPP