Hailstone porridge...

To use the epic lyric from the 80s pop-goddess/choreographer turned talent show judge Paula Abdul, the weather so far this year has been taking 'two steps forward and one step back.'  When I looked out of the window last night and saw the garden was white again, my heart sank.  I resigned myself to another Sunday morning tour of the 'Bridges of Lancashire County' to find a patch of ice-free cut and went to bed.  

When I woke up I was a bit more optimistic, so set out for a chuck.  I decided to head over to Plex Lane and got as far as Southport Rd at Scarisbrick, only to see Paul Porter heading in the opposite direction.  When I caught up with him at Heatons Bridge, he'd already been up to Halsall and it was covered, so I'd made the right decision to turn round and follow him.

There was clear water on the boats by the pub, so we setup there.  It wasn't much to write home about really - I was into fish down the track almost straight away on punch and only had a solitary rutilus on the shell.  I carried on catching on a second butty line over by the boat and even when the sun got the better of things, I still managed a couple of small perch on the worm & caster line.

Paul struggled on the bread at 7m to begin with, but managed to snare a couple of big billies on the worm, along with a smaller sibling.  He caught well on the butty right across and we both finished up with over 2lb apiece, so a good time was had by all, given the circumstances.  By the time we packed in, there were some very big patches of hailstone porridge floating past us, which weren't solid, but weren't melting - very strange to look at...

Its the first match of the SDAA sweep series at Sollom next week and I managed to spy that the overstayed visitors from Stalybridge had finally left when I went down there for a wander yesterday.  At least there are some more pegs to fish from, which had been out of action since last Autumn.

Judging by the stats on here, there can't have been too many people fishing - one of the busiest days I've seen for visitors.  Is Banksy still basking in the sun?  I'm getting watchers from very sunny climbs, so I'm thinking that perhaps he is...