3.45-5.15pm

A welcome relatively mild day, with AT 6degC. My original plan was to go for perch on the canal, but in the end I decided the water temperature might still be too low, and went trotting on the Lambourn.

There were a lot of people around, including some youngsters, being half-term. A couple of boys aged about 11 were fishing. One combined a 5ft float rod with waders to be an effective grayling catcher. The other, amazingly, was trying to fly fish with proper fly line but only a 5ft rod. Well, I admired the spirit, but in other ways they were a slight nuisance. One of their group had got a wooden contraption - not sure if it might have been a crayfish trap - and they were intent on smashing this thing open by hammering it with branches. Phew! It sure made a racket! It seemed to put the grayling off their dindins, so I moved to another stretch, and enjoyed fishing some swims I haven't fished before. Just 9 grayling and one trout. Several nice fish close to the pound, but I don't think I broke the pound barrier. I mostly fished double maggot, but tried sweetcorn a bit at the end, though with no success on this occasion. Back was starting to hurt, so went home a bit before the magic hour.