Monday l headed for an old carp hotspot on the river Thames. The river looked in fine form with some colour but surprisingly not even a bream showed itself. The Thames is such a big river that unless you concentrate fully on the venue it tends to change each year with producing swims one year becoming devoid of fish the next.

Wednesday l made the journey north to help out with the TCF Korum Challenge winners on the river Severn at Arley. The rain kept away but the wind did blow and with the river rising things looked good for a barbel or two and the river didn’t disappoint with most taking part catching at least one barbel. I have to say well done to the two young brothers, Max and Harry and congratulate both on landing their first ever barbel, keep it up lads!

Thursday it was time to create another of my videos ‘The Session’ and the target species was to be crucian carp so with just two venues to choose from, one ultra difficult and the other fairly easy it was an easy choice of venue, Marsh Farm’s Harris Lake. Arriving mid afternoon my intension was to concentrate on the float, using a Preston Carbonactive 17ft rod along with a centrepin up until darkness then swap over to scaled down bolt rigs.

The float proved, as expected difficult, however just as darkness fell l managed two small crucians along with tench. The normally productive bolt rigs were then cast out but an hour into darkness l started to question if things were ever going to happen. Crucians were swirling but l couldn’t manage a bite. A change from corn to a 6mm S-Pellet soon had the indicators moving and over the next three hours l managed six crucians including two of exactly three pounds along with a tench around five pounds.

With the temperature dropping rapidly l called it a day at 11-30pm when activity stopped then started once more at 5-30am, however with a grass frost forming l felt the float would prove unproductive so cast out the scaled down bolt rigs once more. It wasn’t long for the Supercrush Green to do its magic and the first of three crucians graced my net including a real giant of 3lb 7oz!

This new video will be available to view soon on Onlinefishing.tv