3.15 - 4.45pm

A mild day and nice grey cloud so decided to try for perch. I have identified several swims which I'd like to try, but most of them involve a walk, and I decided to wait till my back improves. So I went to a fallen tree in the town centre which looked ideal as I reckoned I could cast to the slack water at the upstream end of the tree, and leave the float there a bit (though on reflection I've never caught a perch in the slack water at the upstream end - would be interested in others' experience.) Then I could nudge it out into the flow and it would glide nice and close to the tree branches where a whopper would be bound to be lurking waiting to pounce.

Alas, tried it for half an hour or so, but no luck. I was surprised by the rate of flow, which felt a bit fast for perch. My gut feel was that I wouldn't catch. The key downstream slack had so many tricky overhanging branches that I didn't risk it.

Decided to switch to trotting maggot to see what came along,and to my surprise caught absolutely nowt - not even a bite. On reflection, even the silver fish will have shoaled up at this time of year. How on earth do you go about finding the shoals on canalised river?