The weather must be bad as last week was one of the few occasions that l failed to create a weekly report. I did venture out, firstly to a stretch of the river Loddon with my brother that’s never kind to me, and low and behold it failed to produce the slightest of twitches. Such was my confidence that l only fished two hours, however this was after trying around eight swims that look the business and have produced for me in past years but this year its just not happening. On the Friday l headed down to the river Itchen and spent an hour in a couple of swims that had produced some big roach for me some years ago. Normally, if they are around it only takes a couple of trots with breadflake but after numerous run through just two bites came, one was a sea trout, the other a grayling.

This week the weather has been just as bad, however l love fishing for chub in the snow and found my favoured stretch empty on Tuesday. The chub seemed in a strange mood as l received seven bites but only connected with three in the short three hour roving session. The best chub went 4lb 9oz and came from a new swim, which is always a result. I did miss one bite whilst trying to take pictures of a couple of weird looking birds eating berries on the far bank. These turned out to be Fieldfares, which come across from Scandinavia to escape the cold weather! In another swim, one that always produces a chub, l wondered why nothing was happening then noticed a black mink on the far bank. It dived and after a few seconds surfaced under the far bank tree where a lot of splashing could be heard. A few seconds later l watched as it dragged, what looked like a roach of around a pound downstream! Along with around a dozen cormorants that took off from the river on my arrival it’s not just the lakes that are suffering from being frozen.

Christmas Eve l tried once more but had the feeling that someone may have been through the swims earlier, although if they had then they had been very discreet. The chub weren’t obliging and l only received bites in one swim, but try as l did l just couldn’t make contact to whatever it was.

Bank holiday Monday my brother picked me up and we visited the river Wey in Farnham town centre and once again found we weren’t the first to try the park swims. A couple of modest dace came plus a trout each before we dropped downstream and found a swim that contained plenty of dace. The more we fed the more confident they came and in maybe half an hour we took maybe a couple of dozen to around 8oz. Unfortunately they haven’t put the extra weight on that they do at the end of the season, but l will continue to see what the biggest the river holds over the next few weeks as this will give me a good indication if a pound plus fish is possible.
On the 29th l dropped the girlfriend off at work and arrived at the river Wey at dawn. The river looked absolutely rubbish, the colour of week tea and rising with different types of crap floating downstream. To be honest if l'd looked at the river before paying for the car park l'd probably not bothered but with two hours available l headed off downstream, how l wished l'd booked more time! Not really expecting too much l was surprised that the first trot produced a dace of around 6oz, the next another, and so on. I lost count in the end; probably around fifty came to simple stick float and maggot, the best equalling my best of 8oz 8grams. Two chub also put in an apperance plus a rudd, which boosted the total weight to around 25lb, not bad fishing!

New Years Eve l headed to the river Bourne, following up on a conversation regarding big roach from last summer. The trip was more of an exploration trip than one to catch fish and seeing a car in the car park was enough to tell me that their was a reason to fish the river. A brief chat to the angler revealed more secrets and l headed off upstream full of excitement. First trot down in a nice looking swim saw the float disappear. I thought that it had been dragged under on the bottom and on mending my line thought that l had indeed caught a snag, but a headshake confirmed that this wasn’t a snag but a fish. For a few seconds it was stalemate but slowly the fish came upstream and a flash of silver had my legs turning to jelly but my excitement was short lived as the monster roach l thought l'd hooked turned out to be a bream. The next three hours saw fish caught in every swim, including dace, bleak, chub and roach the best around 12oz but l did pull out of a much bigger one. All in all a right result and it’s a venue l will be looking at in more detail over the next few months.