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- Mar 10, 2019
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Well after 4 days off for the weekend and bad weather I got back out on the Thames on the sandford old channel today. A closed lane on the A34 led to a late arrival which meant my new favourite swim that I’ve had some good sessions from in last couple weeks was occupied. This meant I ended up in the previous favourite that I’d been in the couple weeks before but I wasn’t bothered as that had been pretty successful as well. Conditions were good with it warm with no no wind or rain and whilst it was bright early on it soon clouded over so it ended up a pretty good day again.
I started on maggot about 8.15 and had about 10 bleak on maggot by 8.40 at which point I made the switch to hemp. I just had the occasional fish in the bright sun up until about 10 when it clouded over and from then until about 2 when it slowed up when the sun came back out it was steady action and I packed up at about 2.40. In that time I had 44 decent roach, a single decent dace and another handful of bleak so a good day on the roach front if bit quiet on the other species. I’d guess it would have probably totalled around 10-11lb.
As usual all fish were caught on the 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rod paired with the drennan 7 series 3000 float reel loaded with 3lb maxima to initially a 1g drennan loaded crystal insert which I soon swapped to a 1.5g to a drennan silverfish size 18 to 2.5lb hook to nylon. This was set up just off the bottom in about 6ft of water and I fished two lines about 1/3 and 1/2 the way across stream which were equally productive although fish wouldn’t come far off the bottom. Everything fell to single hemp hookbait over loose feed of just hemp save for the initial burst of bleak on single red maggot.
All in all whilst it probably would have been a great session save for that early sun it was still definitely another good session that was really enjoyable. The Thames has certainly been productive for good roach bags more often than not in July so hopefully that continues into August. Looks a bit hot and bright over the next couple days which isn’t ideal for fishing but I’ll probably try get a morning session in one day or the other.
Standard pics of the swim and a handful of roach to show the stamp/size range.
I started on maggot about 8.15 and had about 10 bleak on maggot by 8.40 at which point I made the switch to hemp. I just had the occasional fish in the bright sun up until about 10 when it clouded over and from then until about 2 when it slowed up when the sun came back out it was steady action and I packed up at about 2.40. In that time I had 44 decent roach, a single decent dace and another handful of bleak so a good day on the roach front if bit quiet on the other species. I’d guess it would have probably totalled around 10-11lb.
As usual all fish were caught on the 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rod paired with the drennan 7 series 3000 float reel loaded with 3lb maxima to initially a 1g drennan loaded crystal insert which I soon swapped to a 1.5g to a drennan silverfish size 18 to 2.5lb hook to nylon. This was set up just off the bottom in about 6ft of water and I fished two lines about 1/3 and 1/2 the way across stream which were equally productive although fish wouldn’t come far off the bottom. Everything fell to single hemp hookbait over loose feed of just hemp save for the initial burst of bleak on single red maggot.
All in all whilst it probably would have been a great session save for that early sun it was still definitely another good session that was really enjoyable. The Thames has certainly been productive for good roach bags more often than not in July so hopefully that continues into August. Looks a bit hot and bright over the next couple days which isn’t ideal for fishing but I’ll probably try get a morning session in one day or the other.
Standard pics of the swim and a handful of roach to show the stamp/size range.
