Nine days into the season and I embark on a river trip on the evening following England’s victory over Ecuador and head for the ‘Pony Fields’ section of the tidal Stour. As I thought the local wisdom for this stretch was maggots in summer and flake in the winter, I started with maggots and with the tide coming up, swim-feedered with an open ended cage feeder rather than trotting and missed a succession of bites early on before connecting with some small roach.  Switched to flake which produced better bites and a bigger roach, which needed the net, if not the scales. If I visit this stretch again a may simply go for a liquidised bread approach with flake on the hook

GG