I hate the miserable English depressing rain. Especially as I lost my fishing umbrella last week, along with rod rests. I must have left them on the bank. Ho hum. Strange, if I was about to go trout fishing the thought of rain wouldn’t trouble me one bit - so maybe I ought to go trout fishing? But that’s a waste of good coarse fishing time…But it’s raining. Got it! I’ll acquire a new umbrella!

On the Thames: a short session on the Thames at Chertsey Bridge yesterday resulted in a blank and the other session at Bury Hill is documented here: http://www.ukfishingworld.com/index.php/fishing-articles/punting-on-the-old-lake.html

Spent a few hours on a Thames weirpool yesterday. I spotted a carp of about 10lb in the margins and spent about 2 hours trying to catch it but to no avail. Eventually I gave it up and went to spend the last couple o0f hours on the backstream, a slow, meandering stretch of water that looks like it could hold some very good fish. Result was one eel - a biggish one though at 2lb 4ozs