At the moment lm really divided whether to stop targeting eels and crucians and do a complete reverse and start looking at other species, however l have given myself to the end of this week to make the decision so for the moment its still eels.

My last visit to Horton Church coincided with far from ideal conditions but Monday night seemed perfect, overcast and mild. I questioned my approach last time so decided that l would spod out around four pints of dead maggots flavoured in Sonubaits Monster Crab then fish one rod with double lobworm over the top and the other with maggot. The maggot rod received just two runs during the night producing two modest eels whilst the lobs went unnoticed.

With conditions so good, but feeling so drained, l thought that an evening session at Marsh was about all l could manage, however most of the good swims were taken so l headed to the far bank knowing that although quantity of fish isn’t normally on the cards, quality is. The conditions cried out fish but just four fish fell in a very short feeding spell whilst fish rolled. Once the activity stopped so did the bites. Keeping an eye on the far bank things seemed to be going in the same vain so l wasn’t to disappointed with my results.

Thursday night l headed back to the middle reaches of the Thames, once again with Richard Crimp in conditions that were once again spot on but apart from one modest bream to my rod the night was once again unproductive. My feeling is that the floods a few years back completely upset the river and moved things around far more than one first thought. The bream have almost disappeared and the swim that was without a doubt a holding area now seems almost devoid of fish. Without a doubt there are still the odd carp around as a big fish, almost certainly a carp boshed out at dusk, which raised our confidence. Another point is, in the past when we used to pack up, bream anglers would be arriving but no more, so the quantity of bait going in is almost non-existent. The swim would almost certainly respond to a regular introduction of bait but being over an hours drive away it might just be beyond my reach this year.