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- Mar 10, 2019
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So after a good session from my favourite spot on the medley stretch of the Thames on Saturday I decided to book today off work to have another to go. Got to make hay before the floods and frosts and all that. The river was up a couple inches after yesterday’s rain but still in good nick and I ended up having a session spookily similar to Saturdays. They say no two days fishing are the same and I guess today wasn’t as the fish came in peaks and troughs rather than the steady stream of Saturday but the final result was very similar.
Started fishing about 8.20 in a proper downpour which soon cleared up to lovely mild and calm day until packing up about 2.40 after spending the whole session on the stick. In that time I had about 50 roach, about 20 dace, maybe 10 bleak and 5 chublets so probably only a handful of roach and a couple dace less than Saturday which was probably down to the 40 minute shorter session as much as anything. With those few fish short it wouldn’t have amounted to comfortably 15lb plus like Saturday but probably still crept over the 15lb barrier so another good result and therefore enjoyable session. Most the fish came in the first and last third of the session with the middle third quite slow. Pike weren’t a huge problem today with only 3 attacks although one did take me half way across the river due to the increased flow! I also bumped into another maggotdrowner but I’ve had a mind fart as to what his name was on here so apologies if you read this before it inevitably pops back into my head ??
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. This was to a 5bb drennan stick to initially a drennan silverfish size 18 to 2.5lb hook to nylon which I changed to a size 18 to 2lb version during the slow spell although I’m not sure whether that was the reason for the sport improving again or not. This was set up at a roughly dead depth in about 5ft of water. Although I tried hemp and bread that didn’t work today so the successful hook bait was single red maggot over loose feed of hemp and red maggot. I did put in a couple of maggot and hemp laced frenzied hemp groundbait balls during the slow spell although again no idea if that’s what improved the sport or not but probably was more likely that than the hooklength change.
My grandad was with me again and had tried to reproduce his all nice roach feeder catch from Saturday but really struggled to hold bottom in the increased flow. Still got maybe 30 fish of mostly roach with a few dace and gudgeon on a mix of double red maggot and 6mm punched bread but it looked hard work. I have just bought him a stepped up feeder rod for such conditions but he only went and left it at home!
All in all another good session (certainly was rather spookily similar to Saturday’s) so I’m pleased to have justified booking the day off to go. Next session will likely be Sunday as Saturday is forecast proper windy. Won’t be on medley though as there’s another big match on like last Sunday, from which I’d imagine will see big weights like last week again, so I will probably go Clifton or Northmoor.
Standard pics of the swim at the start and end of the session and a few roach which show the rough stamp/size range from the afternoon but they were smaller in the morning.
Started fishing about 8.20 in a proper downpour which soon cleared up to lovely mild and calm day until packing up about 2.40 after spending the whole session on the stick. In that time I had about 50 roach, about 20 dace, maybe 10 bleak and 5 chublets so probably only a handful of roach and a couple dace less than Saturday which was probably down to the 40 minute shorter session as much as anything. With those few fish short it wouldn’t have amounted to comfortably 15lb plus like Saturday but probably still crept over the 15lb barrier so another good result and therefore enjoyable session. Most the fish came in the first and last third of the session with the middle third quite slow. Pike weren’t a huge problem today with only 3 attacks although one did take me half way across the river due to the increased flow! I also bumped into another maggotdrowner but I’ve had a mind fart as to what his name was on here so apologies if you read this before it inevitably pops back into my head ??
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. This was to a 5bb drennan stick to initially a drennan silverfish size 18 to 2.5lb hook to nylon which I changed to a size 18 to 2lb version during the slow spell although I’m not sure whether that was the reason for the sport improving again or not. This was set up at a roughly dead depth in about 5ft of water. Although I tried hemp and bread that didn’t work today so the successful hook bait was single red maggot over loose feed of hemp and red maggot. I did put in a couple of maggot and hemp laced frenzied hemp groundbait balls during the slow spell although again no idea if that’s what improved the sport or not but probably was more likely that than the hooklength change.
My grandad was with me again and had tried to reproduce his all nice roach feeder catch from Saturday but really struggled to hold bottom in the increased flow. Still got maybe 30 fish of mostly roach with a few dace and gudgeon on a mix of double red maggot and 6mm punched bread but it looked hard work. I have just bought him a stepped up feeder rod for such conditions but he only went and left it at home!
All in all another good session (certainly was rather spookily similar to Saturday’s) so I’m pleased to have justified booking the day off to go. Next session will likely be Sunday as Saturday is forecast proper windy. Won’t be on medley though as there’s another big match on like last Sunday, from which I’d imagine will see big weights like last week again, so I will probably go Clifton or Northmoor.
Standard pics of the swim at the start and end of the session and a few roach which show the rough stamp/size range from the afternoon but they were smaller in the morning.
