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- Mar 10, 2019
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After last weeks detour to fish the Dorset stour I was back on my home waters of the Thames today. I’d last fished it 4 weeks ago when it was very much still summer so was initially unsure where to go now it’s autumn. In the end I decided on the easy option and went for my favourite spot at medley. On my last session there 5 weeks ago I had 80 odd roach and 20 odd other fish for probably 20lb which followed few other double figures bags there so even though that was summer and now it’s autumn I was confident of a good result.
I was greeted by lovely calm and mild weather and started fishing about half 8 (half hour later than summer hours!) and fished about half 3 all on the stick save for the last hour on the feeder. In that time I had certainly 50 plus good roach, about 20 small dace, a handful of bleak, a couple chublet and a single perch for almost certainly comfortably over 15lb so a good result indeed. It was a funny day as rather than the steady stream of bites I tended to get in the summer it more came in the form of bunches of roach with then bunches of other fish then after nothing then repeat. Plenty of pile attacks as usual as well!
As usual all the float caught fish fell to the 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rod paired with the drennan 7 series 3000 float reel loaded with 3lb maxima this time to a 5bb drennan stick to a drennan silverfish size 18 to 2.5lb hook to nylon. This was set up to just trip the bottom in about 5ft of water . The vast majority of fish fell to a single red maggot save for maybe a third of the roach which fell to a single grain of hemp (they were not taking hemp anything like as well as in the summer) over a loose feed of mostly hemp and a few red maggots. The few feeder caught fish came to the usual 11ft drennan acolyte ultra feeder rod paired with the drennan 7 series 4000 feeder reel loaded with 6lb maxima to 40g drennan maggot feeder to a drennan carp size 14 to 4lb hook to nylon. Hook bait was triple red maggot with the feeder containing frenzied hemp groundbait laced with hemp and red maggot.
My grandad was with me again and strangely went on the feeder despite me usually out catching him probably 5-1 on the float when he does that but today it paid off for him. He had an all roach catch of 50 plus fish including some crackers up to a pound on the same set up as my feeder. He suffered from the pike even worse than me although did very nearly land a couple
All in all it was a really enjoyable session that produced bags for both of us that were certainly in each of our top 3 or 4 bags for the season. Hopefully the weather will continue to play ball over the next week so we can have another go next weekend as it’s only be a few more weeks before the fishing gets tough so got to make the most of things whilst we can!
Couple picks of the swim at the start and end of the session plus a handful of roughly stamp roach.
I was greeted by lovely calm and mild weather and started fishing about half 8 (half hour later than summer hours!) and fished about half 3 all on the stick save for the last hour on the feeder. In that time I had certainly 50 plus good roach, about 20 small dace, a handful of bleak, a couple chublet and a single perch for almost certainly comfortably over 15lb so a good result indeed. It was a funny day as rather than the steady stream of bites I tended to get in the summer it more came in the form of bunches of roach with then bunches of other fish then after nothing then repeat. Plenty of pile attacks as usual as well!
As usual all the float caught fish fell to the 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rod paired with the drennan 7 series 3000 float reel loaded with 3lb maxima this time to a 5bb drennan stick to a drennan silverfish size 18 to 2.5lb hook to nylon. This was set up to just trip the bottom in about 5ft of water . The vast majority of fish fell to a single red maggot save for maybe a third of the roach which fell to a single grain of hemp (they were not taking hemp anything like as well as in the summer) over a loose feed of mostly hemp and a few red maggots. The few feeder caught fish came to the usual 11ft drennan acolyte ultra feeder rod paired with the drennan 7 series 4000 feeder reel loaded with 6lb maxima to 40g drennan maggot feeder to a drennan carp size 14 to 4lb hook to nylon. Hook bait was triple red maggot with the feeder containing frenzied hemp groundbait laced with hemp and red maggot.
My grandad was with me again and strangely went on the feeder despite me usually out catching him probably 5-1 on the float when he does that but today it paid off for him. He had an all roach catch of 50 plus fish including some crackers up to a pound on the same set up as my feeder. He suffered from the pike even worse than me although did very nearly land a couple
All in all it was a really enjoyable session that produced bags for both of us that were certainly in each of our top 3 or 4 bags for the season. Hopefully the weather will continue to play ball over the next week so we can have another go next weekend as it’s only be a few more weeks before the fishing gets tough so got to make the most of things whilst we can!
Couple picks of the swim at the start and end of the session plus a handful of roughly stamp roach.
