Gary's day

Today was a trip back to the Stort Backwater with a good turn out for a river carrying a good bit of colour. A draw towards the top of the stretch was going to be needed to do well as the fish seem to be shoaled up at this end.

Out of the bag came peg 7, the complete wrong end but at least it was an end peg. With the water being so coloured the breadcrumb was left in the freezer and it was to be maggots and some worms for a perch or 2. Perch were out of the question though as there was a floating platform opposite that kept moving back and forth blocking the gap between the boats. Down the middle it was then.

Jeff above me on peg 8 got off to a good start with a couple of small fish whilst I was still feeding some groundbait down the swim. My own start was slow with not a sign running a rig through near the bottom. After 30 mins I got the mid water rig out and had a couple of decent bleak in quick succession. It looked like it was going to be a small fish day.

A couple of hours in Jeff had a run of small perch over by his boats so maybe there were a few better fish about. Above us they were catching well and we needed a bonus fish or three. As usual the fishing got harder as the day progressed and the fish smaller. By the end I had about 70 fish in the net but the quality was not great and it would need a small miracle to get anywhere today. I had a little more than I feared with 1lb 13oz but nowhere near enough to do any good.

As expected, the pegs towards the weir fished better with the fish being caught generally a better stamp too. There was a good showing of perch to just over a pound with Bob and Steve having a good net of them - along with a pike of just under 7lbs for Steve. On the scales Bob was just beaten by Rob with 6lbs 6oz to Bob's 6lbs 5oz and Steve with 5lbs 11oz was 3rd. Thankfully no DNWs this week after a tough few weeks. Photo today is Bob with what we thought was the winning net until we got to Rob.