Things are starting to hot up on the local still-water circuit with the onset of spring.

A good field of 49 enjoyed a cracker at the Willows on Saturday where the top 30 all recorded double figures or more.

Steve Fearnley led the rout from peg 15 on Ridge Pool. Drawn on peg 15 he targeted the depths and across to the island with cat meat.

His winning net of exactly 48lb included, appropriately, a cat fish of 10lb plus carp to 4lb.

Dave Ward was also on Ridge on peg 13 where he alternated meat and pellets over loose fed pellet for a mixed bag of tench, carp and ide scaling 36lb 9oz.

Top weights from Goldrush fell to Mick Webb who took 34lb 8oz of orfe, ide and chub from peg 50 on pole and maggot to tie with Andy Barker who was on peg 36 and had a similar bag.

Others: Steve Sharples 33lb 3oz, Phil Austin 31lb 7oz.

At Carpvale it is the newly-stocked match lake that continues to dominate with only one of the top six in Sunday's 40-peg second leg of the Abu Spring Series coming from Cyprio Pool.

York Tackles' Dave Maddison led from peg 42 where he alternated maggot and corn on a short pole to plunder 31lb 14oz of the recently introduced stockies.

Paul Clarke was on peg 52 on the same side of the new divide and also fished short.

His speedier approach paid off to the tune of 28lb 4oz, enough for second in a close finish.

The best of the rest were Mick Green with 26lb 5oz, Stuart Wilson, who had best weight on Cyprio with 25lb 8oz from unfancied peg two, and Terry Carlton and John Haw of Acomb Tackle with 24lb 14oz and 20lb 14oz respectively.

At Raker Lakes 30 fished on Horseshoe where the usual silver fish were strangely absent. Perhaps their attention is turning to matters conjugal.

It was left for the small to medium sized carp to make up most of the modest nets on a tough day.

Norman Dixon of Anglers Corner recorded a respectable 26lb from peg 18. Fishing pole at around 18 metres to target the far bank he bagged 11 carp to 3lb alternating meat and corn.

On peg 15 was Neil Horne who used a similar ploy for his all-carp 19lb 14oz.

Others: Mick Herrington 14lb 14oz, Wayne Nolan 9lb 13oz, Paul Stead 8lb 7oz, Frank Johnson 7lb 6oz.

Fulford Road WMC Icebreakers have been enjoying some cracking sport on the Aire and Calder Canal at Pollington in recent weeks topped by several double-figure nets of roach and skimmers.

Russ Walker won this weekend's event with 13lb 6oz ahead of Dave Humble with 11lb 4oz and R Holmes on 10lb 4oz.

The previous week J Wilkinson led with 13lb 8oz of skimmers taken on a maggot feeder cast to the far bank boats.

Updated: 11:49 Wednesday, March 27, 2002