My first session of the year was a guiding one as l had a youngster needing to catch a 5lb plus chub for a competition. Being an angler that likes a challenge l took him to the river Loddon, showed him the rigs, what swims to fish and where to cast, then sat with him until the inevitable happened. It didn’t take long for his breadflake hookbait flavoured in Sonubaits Cheesy Garlic to get a reaction, and first cast it produced not a personal best chub but a brown trout of 4lb 8oz. A few missed bites in other swims followed but eventually he made contact with one, which turned out to be a 5lb 12oz beauty, job done. You can read more on how the day went by checking out the blog page on my website.

Wednesday l spent a few hours with my brother in search of a big river Wey roach. Basically what we do is take one rod and whilst one fishes the other feeds. It’s a great way to spend a few hours, have a social and hopefully catch a few fish but today the roach were no where to be seen, however a few surprise grayling showed up.

Friday couldn’t come quick enough but by Thursday night l knew that the perfect days grayling fishing on the river Test was a million miles away due to the constant rain. I was hoping to catch up with good friend Paul Garner who had planned a two day stint but unfortunately this didn’t happen as the heavy rain had soaked him to the skin on the Thursday but at least he had made the most of it and as l believe had a fantastic day before the river rose and coloured up.

Adrian Eves was my partner in crime and l had jumped at his invitation to fish this private stretch of the Test and as all good anglers do he showed me, and allowed me first chuck in all the good swims. The going was tough and due to the conditions and a painful shoulder l reluctantly gave up on the float after a couple of hours with just a pencil grayling and a lost trout for my efforts. Against my religion out came a Korum Precision Multi feeder rod but to avoid deep hooking l made sure that my hooklink was kept very short, just 4 inches of Preston Grand Match 4.84lb to a size 18 Korum S5.

Again Adrian pointed out an area to try a straightaway I received a bite which l missed due to me actually missing the rod! The next cast produced another bite as did the third but both saw the hook pull. Changing the hook the next two bites were converted into grayling weighing 2lb 4oz and 2lb 1oz before a sea trout headed off downstream mostly in the air unfortunately spoiling Adrian’s swim below, whoops! A couple of hours passed fishless downstream before l returned to the productive swim and again a bite came almost immediately from another grayling of 2lb 3oz. A swim upstream produced a couple more grayling plus a couple of sea trout before a move upstream in search of roach proved unsuccessful. The weather then turned for the worse and once again the rain started and by now we both knew we were wasting our time. Until next time…