After what seems like months, the arctic weather conditions that have gripped the whole of the country finally eased and the snow and frost has eventually disappeared allowing the anglers back onto the rivers and canals.

Unfortunately, the majority of still waters within the region are still heavily iced over and are thawing slowly so no matches were possible again last week.

Last week saw all matches within our area cancelled, one of these matches was the first round of the Rilmac Winter League.

This league consists of five teams of 10 anglers over six consecutive weeks.

On Sunday, 50 keen anglers blew away their cobwebs, dusted down their fishing tackle and headed to the Stones pub in Skellingthorpe for the draw.

After a hearty breakfast they all headed down to the roadside stretch of the Fossdyke Canal to compete in this popular series.

On arrival at the canal side it became apparent that all the snow and ice that we had seen over the past month or so had got into the canal and it was carrying over a foot of extra water.

The water was a horrible murky, muddy colour and the canal was pulling towards Lincoln.

For the first time for quite a while the water was above the "Tins" and onto the actual bank itself.

On the whole, the canal did not fish too bad considering the colour and the pace but the results were well below the average weights that were being recorded prior to the poor weather.

Lance Chambers, fishing for the Whisby A team, won the event. Lance, fishing at peg 46 managed to find a couple of decent bream and backed these up with a 1lb of small silver fish for a weight of 9lb and a clear victory on the day.

They always say in fishing that local knowledge is a bonus. This was proven again on Sunday with the next four top weights all coming from the local Garbolino/Harrisons Lincs County team.

Shaun Stockley drew peg 32 and caught small roach on bloodworm, his weight was topped up by three skimmers up to 1 ½ lb for a final weight of 6lb 1oz.

Peg 77 saw Mark Griggs finish in third place. Mark also caught roach and a couple of skimmers and took 4lb 11oz to the scales. Team captain Neil Smithson (pictured above) finished in fourth place.

Neil found a couple of feeding perch at about 1lb to add to his silver fish net and finished the day just shy of third place with 4lb 10oz from peg 63. Steve Wright finished fifth with 4lb 9½oz from peg 75.

On the day there was no stopping the Garbolino/Harrisons Lincs County team who won the event with 38 points, second place were SPRO Lincoln Whisby AC with 32 points and third were Whisby A with 31 points.