Different venue, same result

I switched venues for my morning trip on June 17th to a local stretch of the River Thames.  Though still high and very chocolate-coloured, this stretch does have some slacker swims where there might be some fish.

I started at the old ford.  Usually the river drops a foot it goes over the ford, but today you can't even tell there is a drop there - the river's surface is just flat.  On the nearside of the river, there is a large bay with a tree in the water.  In the past, this has been a good perch swim and this morning I fishing a large lobworm just in front of the tree.  One or two sharp taps on the rod tip (which could have been crayfish), but no firm bites.

Off downstream to another tree swim.  Usually this is about 2 foot deep, but in current conditions, it is now about 4 foot deep.  However the main significance of the extra water is that this swim now has a very stready flow.  Once again, I dropped a lobworm into the main flow and let it swing round under the tree.  But no bites at all here.

The next swim was one which has produced the odd barbel in the past and which I have been baiting with boilies for the last few days.  I had another series of very fast taps on the tip, and one mangled boilie, but no firm pulls.  Again, it is easy to conclude that these indications might have been from crayfish. 

Two more swims close by were also fished with boilies, but no touches at all.  I am beginning to assume that maybe the chub still aren't keen on feeding, but I would expect the barbel to be keen.  However, location remains a huge problem for them.  Even if they are feeding, they could be hundreds of yards away.

I finally made my way down to another favourite barbel swim.  Fished it for 40 minutes with no touches whatsoever. 

So trip 2 of the new season was also a blank.  Still, conditions are quite poor.  If it wasn't the start of the new season, I probably wouldn't be fishing.  But at least the wildlife was out in abundance.  I reckon I saw at least 4 kingfishers (or the same one four times) flying along the river with small fish in their mouths.

My tentative plan for my next fishing trip is to float fish sweetcorn in one of the steady glides.  But really I am waiting for the river to start fining down - then I really expect things to improve hugely.