THE summer fishing season is getting under way in earnest now as temperatures rise and many species have finished spawning.

Anglers visiting the region's lakes have been enjoying good sport with bags of carp, bream, tench as well as roach and rudd.

Bream to 4lb and tench around the 3lb mark have been caught from Bishops Lake at Waldens Farm Fishery as well as carp into double figures from both Bishops and Abbots lakes. Monks Lake is producing quality bream and tench as well as smaller carp and silver fish.

Salisbury Angling Club held a match on the Inner Snake lake at Witherington Farm Fishery on Sunday and it was won by Jimmy Smith with 54lb 12oz. Malc Pepperill was second with 52lb. The previous day a match on Cottage Lake was won with 93lb.

It looks like carp have finished spawning at Witherington Farm and both pleasure and match anglers are enjoying good sport.

The two annual three-day festivals at Witherington Farm over the bank holiday weekend ended on the holiday Monday and both festivals seemed to have been a success as far as the 27 anglers were concerned. The top three winners from Paul Barnard's festival were Chris Albiston (24 points), runner-up Andy Potter (22 points) and in third spot, Ian Goodfellow, with 20 points.

The winner of the festival run by Mark Blake was Ian Heydon. Individual lake winners on day one were Gareth Boycott, with 88lb from Sellwood Lake and Andy Potter, with 64lb from Cottage Lake. Day two saw Ian Gooodfellow bank 93lb from Cottage Lake whilst Andy Potter had 59lb from Barnmoor Lake. On the third day, Mark Cannings won on Barnmoor with 49lb and Chris Albiston took the honours on Sellwood with 101lb.

A silver fish competition, run over the three days in conjuction with the festivals, was won by Chris Albiston with 69lb, Dave Hydes was second with 67lb and Paul Barnard was third with 65lb.

The new 2016/17 river coarse fishing season begins next Thursday (June 16), and indications are that south Wiltshire's rivers are in pretty good shape with a reasonable head of water.