Well, that was a bit rubbish.

A fifth consecutive day of temps around 30 degrees with unbroken sunshine has been truly horrible for temperate people like me and fish alike.

Thinking that the lakes would be hard with the fish not bothered with feeding (my first mistake?) I headed for Speen Moors with 15ft rod, centrepin, a couple of pints of maggots and bags of enthusiasm. The river looked fab, though reasonably slow paced, and I appreciate todays conditions weren't conducive and it was still scorching and 25 degrees when I packed up at 9:15 when I was already sporting two angry insect bites and felt more would otherwise be endured, and two swans ploughed through my swim.

However, it was usual story for me on Parliament draught, though I did catch my first fish in three visits: 2 dace (one a nice 7oz), 2 roach and a large bleak. I still don't know what I'm doing wrong, but the fish hate me, and I don't think I'll ever catch a chub over a pound. I trotted a large loafer, held it back, let it run. I fished high, I let it drag the bottom, I fished midwater. I loose fed each swim (6-10 maggies in mid stream every 1-2 minutes of so) for 15 mins before casting. I scaled down from a size 14 to size 16 microbarbed hook as advised by a much revered local angler. (I've ordered the braid you advise - it can only help). As usual, I bumped off more than I caught, though this time nothing of any size. With the centrepin I believe my line was always tight, I think my strikes were neither too fierce nor too namby-pamby and mainly fishing the centreline, I don't think I jumped around sufficiently to spook or outstayed my welcome (max 30 mins) in each spot.

Having run out of swims, I made it cross country to fish the planked footbridge to find it fully occupied by teenagers in reduced amounts of clothing, firing a barbecue and smoking something funny. As unwelcome as they were, they were polite and charming, making room for me to cross and offering to help me over the stile (I must have looked knackered, sweaty and fed up).

I decided on nearby Enborne canal. Mercifully, there were no boats (only a trio of those horrid paddle boarders in bikinis). There was fish life everywhere, and on the pin and light tackle, and pretty much using the long rod as a whip, I  must have had a million good, positive bites. I missed 999,991 of them - either bumping the fish or missing them altogether. Having read that a way to address missed bites is to shallow up, but even at 6 inches deep, I kept missing. To be fair, 4 of the 8 perch I caught were barely bigger than the maggots, despite the bites being strong enough to keep the float underwater. So I shall try and explain this example of my ineptitude mainly down to my 16 hook just being too big for them. I did eek out a tasty 6oz roach, and perch of 7 and 12ounces, but that was that.

Having packed up in the near dark, as I walked back along the canal , I saw what I thought was a little white dig chasing a bigger brown one over Guyers Bridge. They turned onto the bank when the brown dog  leapt into the lock crashing into the water maybe 20 foot below canal level. I ran over and saw it was a deer. Four people walked over the bridge and I explained what their white dog had done. They were horrified, the 2 girls quite panicky. There was nothing much we could do. Without lock keys, we couldn't move the lock gates to change the water level, and though one of the guys climbed down the lockside steps into the chamber, the deer, swimming/running up and down the fairly shallow water, was never going to go nowhere near him, and even if it did, how do you grab a panicked deer with one arm and carry it up 20 of so steps?

There were two small areas of raised ground above the water on the corners of one end one end that the deer climbed up on a couple of times and tried to jump out, failing the required height by about 10 feet. At least it had a chance of not drowning. With the girls screaming, and the man hanging from the steps, I felt we were causing it more panic without having any chance of getting it out. I thought it's best chance was for us to leave the poor thing, where it could potentially spend the night on the raised 'islands' and take it's chances with the first passing boat on the morning. The girls were phoning the police as I left. Oh well, if I'd had a pretty crap evening, it was much better than those of the dog owners and that deer.

Maybe next week I'll stick to the lakes.