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- Mar 10, 2019
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After another week of work today I was back on the Thames again for another trotting session. Initial plan was to fish the sandford meadows but whilst it was nice and warm it was also rather windy and my Grandad who was with me again didn’t fancy getting blown about there and instead he wanted to stick to our new favourite medley swim where you are fairly sheltered from the wind. I had been looking forward to a change of scene but it worked out well in the end as I had my best session of the season.
I started fishing just before 8 with maggots on the stick and whilst I had a few fish of proper species straight away the bleak were ominously active for so early in the day so by 8.30 ish I switched to hemp and was straight into good roach. By about 9.30 the wind had got up enough that I was missing as many bites as I was hitting on the stick so I changed to the waggler which fixed that problem. From then on until the session ended just before 2.30 thanks to 4th hook lost to a pike it was bit for a couple quiet spells after boats a near constant stream of mostly good roach and I ended up with a really good bag. Total tally was at least 80 odd roach plus 10 bleak, 8 skimmers, a dace, a perch and chublet. The roach in particular were of a good enough stamp that the almost certainly gave me a 20lb plus bag for the first time this season so I was very pleased indeed! On a side note a couple of the pike were real big uns today as usually they are in the 5-10lb range but couple I hooked (probably the same one) were more like 15lb plus which made for great fun but ultimately unsuccessfully tussles.
As usual all fish were caught on the 13ft acolyte ultra float rod paired with the drennan 7 series 3000 float reel loaded with 3lb maxima first to a 5bb drennan stick then a 2.5 no.4 middy loaded crystal insert waggler to a drennan size 18 to 2.5lb silverfish hook to nylon. This was set up just off the bottom in about 5ft of water on two lines which produced the fish in fairly equal measure pretty much all over the water column as they were feeder really well most of the day. Hook bait for a few fish was single red maggot but most fell to a single grain of hemp over loose feed of straight hemp save for some maggots early on.
Grandad didn’t want to deal with the wind so sat on the feeder for bream which proved fruitless save for a few roach and dace and tons of bleak.
All in all for me at least it was a definitely great session that I really enjoyed. lt was certainly my best session this season and tbh one of my best ever as I just love catching roach and this was a pretty big bag of them for me!
As for the next session I’ve got tomorrow morning free so I might have a quick session then somewhere for something or other. Either way if the weather allows I’ll certainly be out on the Thames somewhere for another proper session next weekend. Tbh I’m tempted to see out the rest of the summer fishing at medley now (still might do sandford though) then mix it up in October when I’m hoping to get a couple long weekends away in on other rivers.
Usual pics of the swim, a few roughly stamp roach and the solitary perch.

I started fishing just before 8 with maggots on the stick and whilst I had a few fish of proper species straight away the bleak were ominously active for so early in the day so by 8.30 ish I switched to hemp and was straight into good roach. By about 9.30 the wind had got up enough that I was missing as many bites as I was hitting on the stick so I changed to the waggler which fixed that problem. From then on until the session ended just before 2.30 thanks to 4th hook lost to a pike it was bit for a couple quiet spells after boats a near constant stream of mostly good roach and I ended up with a really good bag. Total tally was at least 80 odd roach plus 10 bleak, 8 skimmers, a dace, a perch and chublet. The roach in particular were of a good enough stamp that the almost certainly gave me a 20lb plus bag for the first time this season so I was very pleased indeed! On a side note a couple of the pike were real big uns today as usually they are in the 5-10lb range but couple I hooked (probably the same one) were more like 15lb plus which made for great fun but ultimately unsuccessfully tussles.
As usual all fish were caught on the 13ft acolyte ultra float rod paired with the drennan 7 series 3000 float reel loaded with 3lb maxima first to a 5bb drennan stick then a 2.5 no.4 middy loaded crystal insert waggler to a drennan size 18 to 2.5lb silverfish hook to nylon. This was set up just off the bottom in about 5ft of water on two lines which produced the fish in fairly equal measure pretty much all over the water column as they were feeder really well most of the day. Hook bait for a few fish was single red maggot but most fell to a single grain of hemp over loose feed of straight hemp save for some maggots early on.
Grandad didn’t want to deal with the wind so sat on the feeder for bream which proved fruitless save for a few roach and dace and tons of bleak.
All in all for me at least it was a definitely great session that I really enjoyed. lt was certainly my best session this season and tbh one of my best ever as I just love catching roach and this was a pretty big bag of them for me!
As for the next session I’ve got tomorrow morning free so I might have a quick session then somewhere for something or other. Either way if the weather allows I’ll certainly be out on the Thames somewhere for another proper session next weekend. Tbh I’m tempted to see out the rest of the summer fishing at medley now (still might do sandford though) then mix it up in October when I’m hoping to get a couple long weekends away in on other rivers.
Usual pics of the swim, a few roughly stamp roach and the solitary perch.






