WAVENEY VALLEY: With the Waveney in a turbulent and highly coloured state, along its banks upstream of Ellingham Mill there was little room for angling on a river that was out over the marshes in flood.

A few optimists opted for out-of-the-way backwaters, but even in these the roach were loathe to feed very strongly in the muddy silt-suspended water.

Skimmers and better bronze bream appeared much more ready to co-operate and with Waveney golden oldie Colin Davey from Kessingland taking 27lbs of skimmers on the long pole in the quay for one of the veterans' events, hopes were high for good bags.

Tipping a confident and generous opening groundbait approach, those who paled from being so brave were not well rewarded. Not all the roach were off, though, at this venue and it was the bigger boys who sneaked in amongst the vibrant shoal of skimmers.

A plump 1-4-0 stonker graced his catch, although Bungay coalman Jamie Buck's 1-11-8 roach in the Cherry Tree AC match there was even better.

An indication of how inappropriate some aspects of the closed season are was a 12-ounce female perch which was ready to spawn at the narrow top end of the marina, bloated and oozing its eggs into the hand.

Commercials came good again and whilst most had a little higher water than usual, the fish were keen and hungry.

Those opting for Marsh Trail Lakes found several species obliging and many of them feeding within a foot of the bank, whacking the float down with a confident arrogance after their cold-weather break from presented baits.

A pair of tench at 5lbs made the best bag reported on C Pit for Great Yarmouth Angler Pete Warner, not believing anyone that sweetcorn only works in the summer, because it also produced a fine 1-11-0 roach.

At the small, quiet place end of fisheries, Nigel Bale's Ellingham Nursery fishery continues to delight its followers and rewarded some with a lovely conditioned rudd, dazzling the eye with colour, fat in the hand, every fin erect. Roach fed well too and bread has been a good bait for the now quite well-established skimmers.

At Broome Pits it was business as usual and the Kidney Pit produced several bags of quality roach on the float, running up to the pound, the best of which was estimated at 35lbs in total.

Red maggots here, held still against the undertow on the pole at eight metres, have produced the goods, fished in pairs, but the caster too has seen some great silver fish catches in the large B Pit on the feeder fished well out with red groundbait.

A few carp around 6lbs have shown but the bonus has been the bream that wandered into the swim, with several around the 5lb mark taken.

A pair at 8lbs came from the small A Pit by the car park but this deep water has much bigger fish than that present of the species to offer up, with fish seen cruising in the autumn estimated into double figures.