I had taken a look at the Trout Stream a week before the season opened when there were a few difficult but fishable spots. After the very hot spell I thought a flowing stream might be a good bet, but talking to the bailiff on the walk down to the river he said that there was very little flow. This was indeed the case and the weed growth had increased significantly since my walk-about a few weeks earlier. I did however find out from the bailiff how to access the stretch upstream of the bridge.

I walked downstream and found that a couple of spots that I had hoped to be fishable definitely weren't. The weed growth in the stream was just too dense. I headed for a favourite spot and once again found things much more congested than I had seen before the season opened. But it seemed fishable - just!

I started as usual with flake and the first problem was casting. Bank side growth, bullrushes and low overhanging tree branches made things very difficult. The line caught these branches a couple of times causing me to have to twitch the line to free it. Hardly what one wants to do when trying for nervous chub. I did get a bit of interest on the rod top but nothing positive. It might have been small dace or a very cautious chub, but I didn't strike and didn't get any further touches on subsequent casts.

At this point I didn't bother to explore further downstream and decided to go back to the bridge and have a look at the top stretch beyond the locked gate, which thanks to the bailiff I now had the code for. But when I got there I saw a horse and cattle in the field. There was also an electric cattle fence along the edge of the stream. I decided that entering a field with cattle and needing to get over the electric fence, having entered through a locked gate, was probably not advisable. So what to do?

Given the spell of hot weather and the low flow I decided to walk over to the main river and have a go in a weir pool.

Six Gate Weir was my destination. This weir is an outflow from the Great Ouse that feeds into a back channel that merges with the Trout Stream some way downstream before rejoining the main river. As a back channel it doesn't get boat traffic, there being quite a bit visible on the main river including many paddle boarders.

I nestled down in what was clearly a well trodden pitch adjacent to a retaining wall enclosing the weir structure. It didn't appear that deep as there were protruding reeds in places. I had arrived tackled for chub but thought it more likely that I would get roach or perhaps bream.

The first cast resulted in an immediate tap on the rod top. It also alerted me to the fact that the bottom was quite snaggy. I continued to get taps on flake and after a bit managed to hook a fish that turned out to be a reasonable roach. My hope was to get a few more but despite lots of 'bites' I couldn't connect.

I tried touch legering to improve indication suspecting that the rod top was perhaps a bit too stiff for sensitive roach bites. But this didn't improve my ability to hook the fish. Neither did changing to a size 10 hook and smaller pieces of flake. Casting nearer to the outflow of the weir I got more frequent bites and concluded that perhaps these might be dace, which are notoriously hard to hook if fishing as I was with a stiffish quiver top.

I persevered but that roach was to be my only fish and the temperature was increasing, earlier cloud cover having dissipated. It was a long walk back to the car so I decided to pack up around 12.30. The walk back was a real struggle, the car external temperature guage reading showing just under 27 degrees.

I think if I try the weir again I'll take a shorter more sensitive quiver tip rod, overhead tree branches having been a bit of a problem with the 12 ft rod I was using.