Thursday evening match had a real 'spring' feel to it, with the air temperature over 10 degrees and the water temperature up to 8 degrees, overcast skies, so no frost like the previous night. The water had a nice colour to it and with very little wind there was hardly any tow.

The skimmers fed well at Welsh Back, top weight on the night was Alan Healey with 13lbs 14oz caught on a groundbait feeder with red maggot on the hook, Alan fished just past the middle, an area of the docks where the bream seem to spend most of the winter. Dave Clutterbuck came second with a mixed fish catch of bream, roach and dace on the pole, Dave much prefers to fish the pole and now that its warming up, the fish are more active and they are coming in on the pole line.

Third was Jason Bird with 12lbs 12ozs of skimmers on the groundbait feeder and maggot on the hook, Merv Sivell, ditched his usual bread approach in favour of a groundbait feeder and caught 9lbs 5ozs, for fourth. Pete Sivell couldnt continue his winning run this week, and had to be content with 7lbs 9ozs and fifth place, Dave Shore was 6th with 6lbs 6ozs on the pole.

There is a big shoal of bream and skimmers who spend the winter in this area of the docks, if you fancy a go for them, its FREE fishing, you only need your rod licence. The best approach is to fish a groundbait feeder on a quiver tip rod, sweet groundbait mixes seem to work best, cast the feeder about 2/3 of the way across, best hook bait is red maggot.

Follow us on Facebook