THE weather during the past few days has been far from helpful for anglers with several heavy flurries of snow and some hard frosts.

I can find little to be optimistic about with cold melt water running through the rivers and stillwaters frozen once again in midweek.

The week did herald a couple of items of good news that may brighten a dark winter hour.

Some long-awaited good news on Laybourne Lakes, Hessay, is at hand. Following the sinking of a borehole to augment water levels, the official opening day looks set to be in late May or early June. Watch this column for further details.

There will be 106 pegs available at the complex with a dozen of these purpose-designed to allow disabled access.

A number of fishery rules have been agreed and these are:

Hook size of maximum size 12 barbless

Fishing from 9 am until dusk

Sweetcorn may only be used as hookbait

Boilies, peanuts, tiger nuts, cat food, bloodworm, joker and floating bread may not be used.

Keepnets may be used but carp must be kept in a separate net.

Night fishing and braided lines will not be allowed.

Pass to help

Ure fish

at Westwick

FISH struggling to find their way through a fish pass have been given a helping hand by the Environment Agency.

The fish pass at Westwick Weir, on the River Ure, near Ripon, has opened the way to salmon and sea trout but coarse fish are still struggling to get through in times of low flow.

A prefabricated chamber, made of stainless steel, will bolt onto the bottom of the existing stone pass during the spring. This will allow all fish species to pass up and over the weir.

The chamber can then be removed in the autumn to prevent it being damaged by the heavy winter river flows and by debris.

The major work on the fish pass was carried out two years ago and quickly resulted in salmon making their way to spawning grounds. Stonework at the entrance was improved and baffles were placed within the pass to improve the flow patterns.

However, further studies showed that there were still problems for coarse fish in getting through.

David Bamford, Agency fisheries management officer, said: "We had hoped that the improvements carried out previously would benefit the migration of fish but the numbers of salmon and sea trout using the fish pass so quickly after completion was beyond our expectations.

"The obvious next step was to carry out further improvements in order to encourage the coarse fish species to use the pass also. The prefabricated chamber gives a simple solution. We shall monitor the results very carefully and if it proves successful we will look to use the technique at other locations.

"In the long term it will help improvements in all fish stocks in the whole of the river and we are very grateful to British Waterways and Newby Hall for allowing us to carry out this work."

The North of England Game Fishing Show is being held at Nissan Sports and Social Club, Washington Road, Sunderland, on Saturday, February 15. For further details contact Ken Wanless on 01670 814976 or Stephen Grey on 0191 4554555.

Weekend Bookings

Sunday: Acaster - White Rose, Poppleton - Pudsey

Updated: 10:48 Friday, February 07, 2003