7th March - Hamps. River & K&A canal

I've just returned from another fantastic days lure fishing.

A mate of mine is the keeper on a lovely stretch of river in Hampshire and after seeing a few big pike recently (one so big it's been christened, Big Bertha) he invited me down for a quick go at them.

It was flowing pretty hard, but by sticking to the deeper water we managed 4 between us and a few obligatory trout. Unfortunately "bertha" didn't put in an appearance, though he did see her again early this morning. She must be 25+ apparently... perhaps he'll be kind enough to invite me back for another go at her soon.

Here's the biggest to yours truly - 14lb 8oz of trout fed chunk.

To repay the favour I took him along to the canal as he'd not caught a perch on a lure.

It's got a fair bit more colour in it at the moment, and a lot of crap floating about on the surface. I think the boats must have been making use of the pleasant weather.

Unfortunately all was quiet for the first half hour, bar him having a tiny jack before I'd even set up, but after concentrating on the areas that had produced well for me in the past I finally hooked one, a good'un at that. we guessed it would go upper 2's, but it was evidently more "full" than most of the others. Anyway, it turned out to be another pb at 3.04.

We carried on up the stretch with only one more to show for our efforts, a nice fish of 1.10 to my mate.. mission complete.

I had to meet another mate this afternoon to return a borrowed rod so off to another stretch we went, one I've not visited yet. He was a little late, so we had a dabble in a few likely looking spots and managed a few more in quick succession. My mate had another perch about a lb and a couple of jacks and I had just the one take from another seriously full perch of 2.10.

All in all a great day .