At 30 degrees Centigrade, it has been too hot to fish lately, the river has no water in it, with flow just a trickle, while one of my nearby ponds has dead fish littering the margins, due to lack of oxygen. Locally my only option was Jeanes Pond, where a tench was a possibility. Arriving before 6 pm, I hoped to bag one of the shaded swims, before other anglers turned up. I needn’t have worried, no one was desperate enough to brave the heat.

At least the water pump was operating. As I set up my pole, a burst of bubbles erupted under the bush on my right and I quickly punched a 12 mm pellet of bread, ready for the size 14 hook, on my 2 gram antenna float. I dropped the rig straight down over the bubbles, which looked like a carp was busy feeding there. The bait had no sooner touched the bottom, than the antenna lifted, then dropped, the float moving with a series of jerks and bobs. I struck, no bait. I knew the signs. Crayfish.

I mixed up a small amount of raspberry flavoured groundbait laced with ground hemp, a winning combination at Jeanes in recent years and lobbed three balls to the left, under the bush on that side. Dropping the pole rig over the area. Within minutes, bubbles were bursting all over the surface. Once upon a time, this meant bottom feeding fish, tench, carp and roach, but those tell tale bites, bob,bob, bob, meant the dreaded crayfish were crowding around my bait. I hooked one, that dropped off half way to the surface. If left, the double punched bread was gone.

Two more joints were added to the pole and I readjusted the depth to a foot off bottom over the deeper water, throwing in a 40 mm ball of white crumb, mixed with ground hemp. The float dipped and glided away, at least this was a fish. A smallish rudd.

There were shoals of big rudd here once, but this was before the cormorant epidemic. The 12 mm punch was selecting the “better” fish and I decided to entertain myself taking these rudd, in the hope of a random tench. The crumb and ground hemp combination, did not seem to interest the crayfish, while the rudd were queuing up, feeding two swims a couple of metres apart, holding some better rudd.

Throwing in a couple of punched squares of bread, resulted in a pair of 6 oz rudd making smash and grab raids on the floating pieces, ripping them apart. Shallowing up, moving all the shot beneath the float and allowing the bread to sink slowly on a greased line was the answer, although the lightly hooked rudd, both came off in spectacular fashion, somersaulting off the hook against the heavy elastic.

We have to be out of the carpark by 8 pm and I was packing up by 7:30. This session left me with the conclusion that, with the bottom crowded with crayfish, my next visit may include a fly rod, greased line and balls of crumb with ground hemp added.