Sunday we travelled down to Dorset and fished the river Stour at Longham. A few other known anglers had the same idea, however very little was caught.

I fished the waggler in the shallows below the bridge taking two small grayling and a chub around four-pound. It’s my first from the Stour on this method so my practicing must be getting better.

Thursday saw a few hours floating around Teddington weir but all my efforts went unnoticed yet again.

Friday morning saw me heading towards Oxford in search of the monster roach in Willow Pool. Meeting up well before dawn with Michael Townsend we made our pitch along the ‘Med’ bank and with Dai Gribble setting up as well in the next swim hopes were high as soon after casting l landed a two-pounder with Michael taking one on my rods of 2lbs 9oz. A missed bite saw the end of the action till dusk when Dai managed one along with myself adding a 2lbs 11oz roach.

That action was all I received and the following forty hours saw the indicators remain motionless. Apart from two roach that were caught early Saturday morning the lake died and no other angler caught. The session was one of the longest I’ve ever done and although the fishing was extremely slow the company sure made up for it, although the weather on Saturday night was a little scary to say the least. Both fish fell to the standard self-hooking, short hooklink tactic, maggot hookbait with a little Sonubaits hemp within the maggot feeder. One tiny adjustment that may have helped me catch those fish was l placed one of the small Korum rig sleeves on the short hooklink that acted as a boom and kept the rig from tangling.