Gary's day

We were on the Backwater again today with it dropping after another wet week but with it still having some flow and colour. Wednesday's match showed the fish are still shoaled up at the top end and the goal was to squeeze us into the high numbers.

Out of the bag came peg 16 for me. The right end of the river, however, I had forgotten how close peg 15 is. You do not get a lot of water to play with and no gap in the boats. I had Rob on peg 15 below me, the same peg he had on Wednesday, with Steve above me on end peg 18.

A start on bread punch had a bite after a few runs through and a 2oz roach. After the last couple of matches fishing for bleak it looked huge. Below me Rob was having a slow start but Steve got off to a flyer with his landing net going out regularly.

After a decent roach to start the fish got steadily smaller and a big flash of silver under my float soon explained why - pike. Rob started to catch a few small perch over towards the barges and Phil on 14 was also getting a few fish now.

My day was pretty much the same. A few reasonable roach or dace, then a pike strike and back to micro fish until the better ones regrouped. As usual the fishing got tougher as the day progressed but the odd fish was still feeding the net. Steve was still catching well and Rob was also ticking over. At the weigh in I was surprised to have 4lbs of bits, lots of bites but nowhere near enough.

After seeing Steve regularly netting fish for most of the day it looked like he was the man to be beat and so it proved with a great mixed bag of perch and silvers for 9lbs 9oz. Second was John with 5lbs 14oz from peg 13 which looked so odd without a boat opposite. Another good weight and normally enough to win with Darren not far behind with 5lbs 3oz with around 130 small fish - a very busy day. With 3 1/2 lb taking last place it fished the best it has done for a long time. Photo today is Steve.