It’s getting depressing now. Most of the week I’ve been rushing around, completing articles, taking photos, basically doing everything but seriously fishing.

However as the weather is so uninspiring for angling and looking at the reports I haven’t missed much.

Thursday I was meant to spend the day at Bury Hill after Zander but the weather is so cold we decided to abandon this until a milder spell arrives. A return to the Thames was my second plan but to my amazement the volume of water running over Teddington weir was far from perfect, especially for perch. In fact it was a bit dangerous, so after an hour within the weir afloat we decided to return to the bank. Apart from a small trout that was caught on the far bank no one including us caught.

Friday I drove to the river Ivel and Ouse near Bedford to take some pictures for the Cemex Guide Book and although I only spent an hour on each I did manage to catch a moderate chub as well as two roach so it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

Looking at the Loddon on Saturday revealed too much colour and speed for perch, which confirms why the Thames is so fast, so I didn’t even wet a line returning home to organise my chub gear for next week.

Our rivers are far from ideal, running fast and cold and apart from chub that may well feed in these conditions perch certainly wont, so until the colour disappears and the volume of water decreases my perching will have to wait. It’s going to be all out for chub until then, however it wont be on the Stour as I’ve just been told that its bank high and flying through. Strange as the only rain we have had in the past week was on Wednesday night and I didn’t think it was that bad. Unfortunately the ground is so saturated that every time it rains the water runs straight into the rivers, lowering the temperature and killing sport dead.

With the Thames and Stour out of sorts it’s going to have to be the Kennet at Burghfield so with tackle already sorted lm looking for a full day, from dawn to dusk, my first proper session for quite a while.

As I write this report it’s got even colder and looking out of the window the lakes situated at the rear of the house have frozen solid, great!