Gary's day

Today was a trip to the Backwater for the first Sunday match of the year with us hosting Sawbridgeworth for the Lea and Stort Cup. With all the pegs in use there were a few I did not want today, thankfully I drew peg 12 which normally throws up a few fish.

It was going to be the usual for the Stort: bread punch for some roach and a line across by the barges for perch. A few fish topping before the start was encouraging as long as they were not being chased by pike.

A start on bread punch was worryingly quiet with a couple of quick small fish and then nothing. An early try by the barges was much better with a short run of perch up to about 8oz before the line died and it was time to rest it. Steve on peg 10 was having a slow start but finally started catching a few nice roach. Above me it sounded like it was fishing pretty hard.

I had a couple more decent runs of perch by the barges but then what little flow we had pretty much stopped and it got much tougher as we went into the afternoon. Some small roach, bleak and dace fishing shallow with pinkies kept fish going in the net but the last part of the match was a real grind for everyone.

For being low and clear the river fished better than expected with a few perch showing today along with a 3lb+ chub.

My run of decent perch paid off with one of the best weights I have had off the Backwater going 4lbs 12oz and picking up first place. We then had a 3 way tie for second with Tony Cruci, Steve Morrells (with the chub) and Rob Calderon all having 3lbs 8oz and then Darren Cope just beating Mark with 3lbs 3oz. Team wise a solid set of results gave us 23lbs 15oz to Sawbridgeworth's 11lbs 6oz so Bishop's Stortford retained the Lea & Stort Cup.