Monday was spent in the company of Preston man, Steve Saunders at Willingshurst testing out the new ‘Quick Release – Method Mould’.

The weather was a typical dull, raw winters day with a chilling north- west wind however after last weeks frosts the overnight temperature has stayed a few degrees above freezing so its not all bad news.

Fishing the ‘Main Lake’ Steve managed four good carp after a slow start plus a few roach for a hard earned 35lbs which included a huge F1 that must have been 6lbs! Check out the new ‘ Method Mould’ its going to take method feeder fishing to a new level.

Wednesday saw a return to the roach lake, however the small nature of the lake and six anglers already scattered around left very few swims available, however a couple of double figured carp, which both took some forty minutes to land, on the 17ft rod boosted my catch which included roach to 1lbs 10oz. Michael Townsend had travelled all the way from Doncaster and found the fish taking numerous roach including two, two’s, 2lbs and 2lbs 3oz on waggler and caster tactics.

Friday came and at long last after some four five years I was back after perch. The Thames run-off starts on Saturday so a session on Cemex Boat Pool was booked in order to complete a couple of articles. Not knowing what to expect and with no live baits myself and good friend Steve ‘Donut’ Ansell decided to spin until fishery manager, Roo Newby arrived. Apart from a tiny pike no perch were taken although a good fish was spotted in one corner. Roo arrived and organised some tiny roach baits for us and within ten seconds of dropping one in on a sunken paternoster rig I landed a perch around 2lbs 4oz. This was taken from a swim that both Steve and myself had both run spinners through. From then on it was hectic and in the next three hours we took thirteen perch over two-pounds, the best 2lbs 13oz taken by Steve along with numerous smaller ones. The rain has been forecasted which may just put the Thames out of sorts next week but I will be their trying my best.