Promises of rain by the smiling lady weather forcaster on TV, had persuaded me to sow grass seed on my parched lawn, but after days of watering by hand from deminished water butts, a warning of a 90% chance of heavy rain was ignored by myself, when I set off in bright sunshine for a late afternoon session on the River Cut a few miles from home.

Passing areas of bare gravel and mud, covered by falling leaves, I continued downstream looking for a swim with some signs of flow, to no avail. This once fabulous stick float trotting river, now resembled a shallow pond, but on the outside of a long bend, the floating leaves were sluggishly creeping past the opposite bank. This spot would have to do and I searched the depths of my tackle box for a small canal waggler, finding one with chipped paint on the reed antenna, but locked to the line with 2 BB, 2 No 6 shot down the line and a size 14 barbless hook, an easy underhand cast with my lightweight Hardy 12 foot float rod, put the float close to the bank. The 8mm punch of bread was taken on the drop and a six inch chublet was the first fish in my keepnet.

While tackling up, I had mixed up a small amount of light groundbait of liquidised bread, ground hemp, mixed with strawberry flavoured fine crumb, which I added enough water to just hold together, when lobbed over to the other side, breaking up on contact with the surface, forming a cloud. The last thing I wanted was to build a pyramid of hard balls on the bottom, that would not break up, due to the low flow. The groundbait was certainly attracting something, as showers of fine bubbles began erupting from the bottom. In the middle of the bubbles, I got bites, but few fish, all small, most of which fell off the hook. The tiny roach, chub and dace were not worthy of my keepnet and I threw them back, but the gudgeon were bigger. I persevered with the 8 mm punch, as a carp kept swimming through the swim, nudging at fallen leaves. It appeared to be about five pounds, and cruised within inches of my bank and not interested in my bread, when offered in front of it’s nose.

The wind was getting up, blowing through the trees behind me, and soon rain was showing on the surface opposite. I had no waterproofs, but pulled my hood to cover my cap and repossitioned my bait apron over my legs. At least the rain was warm. Whoosh. Like a mini tornado, the wind and heavy rain rushed through the little river valley, stripping leaves from the trees.

Like a tap being turned on, the river began to flow again, gradually increasing. Upstream the river is captured by several lakes, while it serves the town as a drain for its surface water, flowing south to north and the mighty River Thames. Silver fish began replacing the gudgeon, as the float made progress down the swim. The float went under and the line followed. The rod had a bend in it. At last something was fighting back. It was a small roach, but much bigger than those before it.

My bread was super soft now in my bait tray, due to the rain and possibly easier for the roach to mouth, whatever the theory, my next bite produced a better roach that fought all over the swim.

The fresh flush of water was obviously a tonic to the fish and another ball of groundbait created a cloud that visibly drifted downstream. A cast to the middle of it brought a sailaway bite, that took line, the strike being more of a lift into a moving target, as my rod bent round in response. Was it that carp? The line went solid, then came free again as the fish headed upstream, still pulling hard, then turning to the middle hugging the bottom. I was convinced that it was a carp, until a muddy chub surfaced ready to be netted.

This was not as big as I thought, but it had tried to get under a snag earlier and got buried in the mud, its mouth was full of the black sludge from the bottom.

Throwing in a ball of feed brought another quality roach searching through the cloud, with an instant dive of the waggler. I let it continue to take line before lifting into this hard fighting fish, the roach running upstream against the current, then curving across to my side, before surfacing to slide into the landing net.

I began catching gudgeon again and scraped up enough feed for a small ball, but decided that big was better and pulled out the ingredients for another few balls, tipping them into my bait tray, then mxing them with my left hand, while I watched the float, holding the rod with my right. Two more gudgeon added to my catch, while this went on, before glugging in some more water from the bottle. Rolling up another ball with my left hand got me into trouble, when the float went down and I hooked another good roach with my hand in the bait tray. Lifting my right index finger allowed the roach to run, while my left hand disengaged in time to grab the handle on my ABU 501 and bring another pristine roach to the net.

The flow was now slowing again and the first ball had only brought a small dace and a couple of gudgeon, so in went the second, more gudgeon, then solid resistance and a run with the characteristic thumping fight, as a roach zigzagged down the swim. The light was going already and once netted, I decided to pack up.

Deciding to fish with the waggler rig had made a difference to presentation, allowing very light shot down the line, although I was expecting to make contact with that carp at any time during the afternoon. Likewise, the constant bursts of bubbles could have been that carp rooting about in my groundbait, or as I suspect it was a colony of bread stealing crayfish.

Another good reult for the bread punch.