Arrival time: 10.00.
Weather: Cold & bright with a light breeze.
Tackle: Korum 12ft 'Multi-feeder', Shimano ST2500FB baitrunner, maggot feeder/2x2SSG link, 6lb line to 14 eyed hook..
Baits: Maggots & worms.
Fish: Blank

With the river having returned to a normal winter level, albeit with very strong flows in the main channels, I decided to try the Car Park Pool which usually presents much calmer water. My theory was that fish could have moved into the pool to get out of the heavy main flows. I had caught a bream in the pool on two previous visits and hoped that this species would be present again.

I started at a swim not far from the road bridge where I had caught a bream on a previous visit. It was an easy swim to fish with flat ground at near water level. There was an overhanging tree to my left and I pre-baited with maggots to the right of the tree using the catapult before casting to the spot with a maggot feeder. The wind blew the line into the tree branches on the first cast, which wasn't a very good start.

After a few cast it became clear that there was quite a lot of dead weed on the bottom, each cast bringing back evidence of this on the hook. I decided therefore to walk along to another swim with just my rod and and made a few unbaited casts to test the bottom for weed. As nothing came back I decided to move there.

It wasn't as easy to fish as the first swim, the sloping bank being very slippery after recent high water, so I fished it from the top of the bank. I again catapulted out maggots and fished not too far out. It soon became clear that the maggot feeder wasn't emptying, probably because of lack of flow and the maggots not being very active in the cold water, so I changed to a simple link leger relying on the free fed maggots for attraction.

To cut the story short, I didn't get even a hint of a bite during the few hours that I was there. I had changed to worm and explored further out, as well as nearer the margin, but there wasn't a hint of fish.

The bailiff chatted to me for quite a while mentioning that the swims on the side of the pool where I was fishing hadn't fished that well of late. Also, the few cars that were in the car park when I arrived had left fairly early, which might have been an indication that I wasn't the only one struggling.

I had originally planned the trip for the previous week but river conditions had ruled it out. And I had been fairly confident that the calmer water in the pool would have attracted fish from the heavier flows in the main channels. But that's fishing! You think you know what the fish might do, or where they might be, but in reality it just doesn't work out.

So, my first blank of 2026!