I checked out the Docklow Pools’ stretch of the River Teme yesterday. Like the Wye, most of the bank was unfishable. There were three fishable swims upstream from the car park and although I saw a chap fishing downstream I couldn’t work out how he had got down to the river.

Today I arrived and nobody else was there. I went to a swim under some trees, where the water was running off some shallows into a deep glide about 10-15 yards downstream. It seemed a textbook barbel swim.

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Fishing it, however, was not easy. The strength of the current made it difficult to stop the feeder being dragged into the fast water channel, whereas I was trying to hold the slower water on the edge of this channel. Using a flat leger instead of a feeder didn’t help. I fished from about 09.15 to midday, trying various tactics, but didn’t get a hint of a touch.

Nearer the car park there was a full ninety degree bend in the river, with a large slow-moving pool on the near bank. I decided to give this a go. Getting down to the water’s edge was far from easy. The bank was both steep and slippery. No sooner had I got set up and it started to rain heavily, requiring the umbrella to be deployed.

I fed bread pellets down the margin and tried a light leger (the flow was slow), a feeder and even a float, but again not a hint of a bite. I changed to luncheon meat and started trying different parts of the swim. Finally, having cast towards the far bank, I got a clear bite and at first thought I had hooked a smallish chub. However, it turned out to be an eel of about a pound. This was a bit dispiriting. To avoid the eel getting tangled up in the landing net I tried to hand-line it up the bank and lost my hook in the process.

Following the heavy rain the weather brightened up for a while, and my gear had almost dried out, so I made the decision to call it a day and return to Docklow to fish a lake for a couple of hours. The Teme had beaten me, and although the chap who was there when I visited the stretch yesterday had come back today, I still couldn’t find him! There’s obviously more to this place than meets the eye.