3.30-6.10pm

A nice grey day, and after such a warm week I thought it would be a great day for perch. But the news in the tackle shop was that the fishing was still hard, and my back was playing up which limited where I could get to. So I went to a free weirpool which I used to fish a few years ago.

First thing I did was to check the WT. At 8DegC it was a rise of 3degC in just a week. My spirits rose and I thought the perch would be going wild, but it soon became apparent that things weren't going to be easy. There is a part of the pool where, in the past, if I allowed a float to drag a lob slowly along the bottom I could almost be certain of a fish, even in very cold weather; but there was nothing doing. I switched to maggot feeder, still with a lob on the hook, and rotated between three likely swims, re-casting every 3 or 4 minutes to get a quantity of maggots on the deck. Zilch!

Then just before the final whistle blew I got one fat perch, just under the 2 pounds. No fish could have been more welcome.