FRIDAY'S torrential downpours followed by another deluge on Sunday, did little to help fishermen as water temperatures fell rapidly and levels rose.

Prior to the heavy rains, sport had been picking up following the recent hot spell with some big bags of fish starting to be caught from the lakes.

At Witherington Farm Fishery, Barnmoor Lake produced two huge carp - one a 30lb common caught by Terry Brown and the other a mirror weighing 25lb 11oz, landed by carp-man, Nigel Tupper. A mid-week open match staged by Reid's Tackle, using Cottage and Sellwood lakes, saw big weights.

On Cottage Lake top rod was Darryl Mayers with 120lb 2oz, Graham Tappenden was second with 83lb 9oz and Paul Barnard was third with 81lb 12oz. On Sellwood Lake, Ian Goodfellow took the honours with 96lb 4oz, Gary Etheridge was close behind with 92lb 3oz and in third spot was Dave George with 79lb 9oz. The penultimate match in the Evening Series on Sellwood Lake was won by James Knight with 41lb 1oz, Dave Moody was second with 34lb 12oz and Mark Blake was third with 30lb.

Then the heavens opened and the rain followed. Salisbury Angling Club members fished in wet and windy conditions on Sunday in their club match and found the Inner Snake lake at Witherington a lot tougher and a bag of 48lb 12oz caught by Mick Keynes, was enough for victory. Malc Pepperill was second with 37lb 10oz and Paul Barnard third with 32lb.

River fishing continues to be difficult and although it will take a few days for the heavy rain to start colouring up the water, the flow speed increased sharply following Friday's downpours, which saw over two inches deposited. Over the weekend, the Avon remained clear and at the London AA stretches at Britford, the going remained hard with a handful of dace and small chub and a few roach.

In the Fordingbridge and Ringwood areas, the Avon once again is fishing better with Fordingbridge Park providing good bags of dace and quality roach with similar bags from the Winkton stretch. Lifelands has started to see some of its barbel being caught and during the week the best banked weighed 14lb with a handful of others into double figures.