River Medway @ East Farleigh Today

[Bluesbro]

Well all I can say is .....WHAT A DAY....... I have never experienced such a CRAPPY fishing experience to date and its all down to other peoples complete disregard to anglers!!!

Got up bright and breezy this morning, brimming with excitement and hope of catching a barbel or a chub. Haing had several conversations on here and reading up I was hopefull that my newly learnt tactics would serve me well. After a 15 mile detour to pick up my mates lad for his first river trip we arrived at farliegh. Sun was shining and weather was plesant so I was hoping the river would be brimming with feeding fish. We arrived at our swim and I immediatly grou baited two seperate areas that I was going to fish, 1 was with hemp mix that was pre prepared in a tin and the other was with small fish pellet

OUR SWIM


Taking on board what I had been told on here and at the tackle shop I set up two swim feeds, 1 with a patanoster type hook coming of the side and the other running a hair just after the feeder. On one rod I was using yellow maggot as bait and on the other I was using these soft stinky fish boileys I had picked up from the shop, with feeders running their corresponding ground bait.

MY SET UP


Plop, got both in there ground bait zones and bobbins set. Over to help young Jake set his feeded up.



Now the fun really begins!!!!!! After what can be no more than 10 mins or so of fishing I hear a "chug chug chug" coming along the river. Right im thinking lets get the rod tips in the water so keep the line out the way and hopefully he will see us and steer around. SNAP, SNAP BOL**X!!!! 2 out the 3 feeders gone. Out comes the tackle box, re set up and try again.

Plop back in the zone all freshly baited up. After what I think was about another 30 miuns or so "chgg chug chug". Right this time im gonna call out before they get near us that way they know we are here.

"HEY HELLO MIND THE ............SNAP SNAP SNAP.........two more feeders and jakes float, the bloody bloke driving was two busy drinking a beer and talking to a bint to even acknowlage our existance!!!

Right now what? Do we move out into the open where the boats can see us easier?? But then we would be moving away from all our ground baited area and into another swim that was featureless. No sod it we will give it one last shot.

Plop..............hour ish later "chug " " " "HEY MIND"".......SNAP SNAP........"oh ever so sorry" comes a cry from down river as they go past......Really getting Pi**ed now. Sod the groundbait were moving, I only got 1 swimfeeder left. At least in the open they can see us clearly!!!!

Pack up and move to a swim righg out in the sun, no trees for 100yards, right lets finally get settled down to fish...........Fat lot of good that did!!!!!! SNAP SNAP SNAP anothger boat comes past, waves to us!!!! and f**ks off with all our gear, including my last swimfeeder!!! Im fishing on the BOTTOM!!!! WTF!!!! How on earth are these boats getting that close to hook up our line???? The river is 30/40 +foot wide so why on earth are they all coming so close to the bank and not even looking at whats going on in front of them!!!.

Having no swimfeeder I gave it one last shot, set up a waggler float and gave it a bash!!!!! What happened next beggers belief.............. a boat came along the river, practicaly parked in my bloody swim but missed all our lines!!!!! The bloke driving it then promptly apologised saying "I didnt see you there"....THEN.......for no apparent reason slammed it into reverse and caught my float and then as jake was frantically reeling in caught him!!!! NOTHING WAS COMING FOR HIM TO NEED TO REVERSE!!!!!! plus when he pulled away he was stripping line off of jakes reel after pulling it off of the rod pod, Jake was screaming at the bloke to stop because he couldnt break the line and thought he was going to lose his rod. The bloke was no more than 10 foot away and didn`t bat an eyelid and ignored him!!!!!! I burnt my hands snapping the line and then promptly completely lost it on the river bank calling the bloke all the names under the sun!!!!! I swear I see the toff bastard smiling to himself as he dissapeared down the river!!!!

What a crappy days fishing, gotta have been 10 lots of gear the boats had off me and jake. Thats the last time I try and fish the river on a sunny weekend day!!!! To many blind, stupid, ignorant boat owners to worry about!!!

Rant over lol

Joe

[chris.oldgit]

you have my full sympathy joe, unfortunately its not just your river, most rivers and canals have these idiotic morons with total disregard for other river users, it also happens along the coast, with the jet skiers and kite surfers, coming to close to the shoreline.

[saladdodger]

i feel your pain

Thames & people rant :0(

[steveybabes]

mate im new also new to river fishing and like you have been giving the areas around maidstone a bash. and i also had the same experience around the date you are talking about. have you done any more down the river recently i think i might be piking this weekend. keep us informed of your journey down our much loved river

tight lines.

[Dadwood]

That's really pants Joe. Let's hope that in a week or so's time the boats get layed up for the winter.

[BoldBear]

If that happened to me I would probably fire a few pouchfulls of maggots or loosefeed across them and say ‘Ooops, Sorry mate, didn’t see you there!!’.
They would then have to spend half an hour cleaning it out of their boat, and make them more aware next time they pass someone fishing.

It's just pure ignorance on their part.

Makes me glad that I don’t have any boats in the stretch of river that I fish.

You could try using a small flying back lead further up the line which should pin your line along the bottom, that may help in these situations; as long as it didn't interfere with your striking by putting too much bow in your line.

Keith (BoldBear)

[Bluesbro]

Originally Posted by steveybabes

mate im new also new to river fishing and like you have been giving the areas around maidstone a bash. and i also had the same experience around the date you are talking about. have you done any more down the river recently i think i might be piking this weekend. keep us informed of your journey down our much loved river

tight lines.

Good luck with the piking mate, I have not been back to fish the river since, kinda made me dis-heartened that it could happen again, plus being new to freshwater I am now low on gear because of that 1 trip so until santa visits I am going to be really low on gear. Shame really as the previous trips had been enjoyable.

Originally Posted by BoldBear

You could try using a small flying back lead further up the line which should pin your line along the bottom, that may help in these situations; as long as it didn't interfere with your striking by putting too much bow in your line.

Keith (BoldBear)

Sounds interesting Keith, can you elaborate a little more for a newbie. I am fishing from a slightly elevated position so would this still work and how would I go about overcoming the whole boating problem in your opinion?


Many Thanks


Joe

[BoldBear]

A flying backlead is usually a shallowish bell shaped weight with a hole through the centre which is threaded above your end tackle with the wide part facing the end tackle, and when you cast it slides up your line then sinks pinning your line to the bottom.

If I were you I would try using a flying backlead and after casting set my rods so that they point slightly downwards towards the water reducing the amount of line between the rod tip and the end tackle, and make sure that when you tighten up you dont lift the backlead off the bottom.
You should still see bites (with the line being pulled) but your line should be lying safely under any boat traffic.

Alternatively, you can fix a small backlead a few feet above your end tackle using one or two float rubbers if you are only casting a short distance; in which case any small sliding leger weight can be used but the further up the line you can get the backlead the more chance you have of keeping your line out of the way of boat traffic.

tight lines

Keith (BoldBear)

[Bluesbro]

Ok Keith thanks mate, I shall give that a try next time I go and see how I get on. It`s got to be better than catching boats!!!

[Chef58]

My rule of thumb for that stretch of the river, is do not fish during the day during the summer, never fish there at the weekend, if the weather is good. There is a campsite just up the road from where you fished, where you can night fish ,as I am not sure if it is allowed on the stretch were you were. The river is very under rated, as most people try to fish when all the Hoorays are out in their ocean going boats.
I have had some great catches from that stretch of the Medway, but you have to approach it like you would sea fishing, with the tides, being the boat traffic.
Unfortunately we have to share or waters with Captain Pugwash and Roger the Cabin boy, just don't go there when they are out in the penis extensions.