Gary's day

With all the lakes being frozen still it was the Backwater again this Sunday. Thankfully not as cold as last weekend but with a threatened drizzle all day. Thankfully it only started as we were leaving.

In contrast to last weekend's very clear and barely moving river today it was heavily coloured and pushing through. Out of the bag came peg 7 for me which I was pretty happy with as it has a bit of a slack being in one of the corners. For company I had Tony below and Phil above.

It was a slow start but by the end of the first hour I had about 10 small bleak in the net. They only ever seem to show up when the river is flooded. Below me Tony, John and Rob were struggling to get any bites. And above Phil and Fred were catching a few small roach.

A try for perch by the boats was soon abandoned as a floating platform kept being pushed back and forth by the flow blocking off my line. So it was back to bleak.

For the rest of the match it was a case of chopping and changing depths, maggot or pinkie on the hook and different areas of the peg. There seemed to be never more than 2 fish on any 1 combination and most wanted to be nowhere near the bottom.

Below me they were still struggling and I ended up the last peg as you went downstream to catch anything. It was definitely a river of 2 halves today with the upstream half fishing much better.

In the end my 40 or so small fish just nudged over 1lb for nowhere with the higher number pegs dominating the day. It was close between Darren and Fred with Darren just edging into the lead with 4lb 14oz to Fred's 4lbs 10oz. And then Phil picking up third with 3lbs 14o. Photo today is Phil and Fred's fishier bit of the River.