Blankety Blank

Not an auspicious start to the new year with two blanks in quick succession. High winds prevented me from getting the boat out at first and so I tried a trip to the river- to fish for pike this time.
It was a mistake from the off. The river report suggested that the level was up a bit, but falling but when I arrived, it was clear that my choice of swim had been a bad one. I wanted to fish a slack on the far side of the river but the current was far stronger than I was hoping for and I found it impossible to hold out in the flow. I packed up without even putting a bait on and wandered back to the car, a mile or so away. There were two blokes waiting to get into the gate where they worked when I got there. They watched me lug half a ton of fishing tackle over the stile and load it, piece by piece into the car. then one of them walked over

"Are you here for the bird watching?" he said!

I moved on to another stretch of river where I knew the slack water would be on my side of the river. I found I could fish this ok but it was then that I realised just how fast the river was coming up. It was visibly creeping up the grass stems around my feet and it wasn't long before I gave it best and headed for home. The river never fishes well when it's rising.

Next day Joe and I got the boat out. It was a wet and windy day on the lake and very unproductive. I had the only run of the day and pulled a fish of around 15lbs up to the boat, only for Joe to knock it off with the net. There were two other boats out, both of whom packed in early and left so I imagine they had a bad time of it too.
Surface temperature was 6.3 degrees, a fall of 0.4 degrees in just a week - quite a big drop for such a big lake.