Session Tomorrow

[Maceo]

A mainly dry day with bright spells but often large amounts of cloud. The best of any sunny spells are likely to be in the morning, especially across eastern areas.

Going to try out this new Maver 13ft match rod that arrived today - bargain for £20.

Got the usual tin of economy corn plus a tin of hemp and I bought some plastic sinking hemp to try on the hook as an experiment. I can't usually hook hemp - it just breaks up when I try. I'll be interested to see whether this plastic stuff fools the fish. I just hope they don't swallow it completely - it surely can't do them any good!

I'll be down on the Thames at Newbridge again straight after dropping the kids off at school.....

[Maddison_Twatter]

Good Luck !

[BoldBear]

Hope you have a good day.

[Maceo]

Well, not too bad a day, but not brilliant either. The wind was a real problem, blowing strongly straight downstream, which made casting quite difficult at times. The water was also pretty choppy. I always suspect that even with only the tip of the float above the water, those wavelets must move the float and therefore jiggle the bait around in an irregular and suspicious way.

The river was flowing faster and was noticeably deeper than last week. It was very, very slow for the first hour and a half. Didn't even get a bite for quite a while - first time I've had that down there. Finally got a few dace and roach, but not as big as previous. Biggest roach was maybe 8oz or so.

Took my daughter's camera down there and took a couple of photos, so as soon as I find the USB cable for it, I'll put them up here! Total of 11 fish during the day, but it stayed slow really the whole day.

On the positive side, the new Maver rod was very nice. I think that's the first time I've had a completely new rod - always been one someone's passed on to me before. Soon discovered that it's not practical to keep the plastic wrapping on the cork handle (to keep it nice!). It soon gets wet and slippery as I found after nearly throwing the rod in on one vigorous cast.

Another positive was that after busting my old rod and losing a float there last week, this time I came way a winner!

Some old line someone had left there tangled around my boot and when I followed it into the reeds, there was a nice newish-looking swim feeder on the end. Result!

One final thing that made this trip memorable was two posh lady swimmers in wetsuits who came splashing at top volume through the middle of my swim, went 20 yards past, turned round and came swimming back through again.

"Oh! I keep a spreadsheet of ALL my daily exercises" said one to the other as they went past.

I expect she probably does.

[Maddison_Twatter]

Wel done m8, the wind can be a pain in the butt sometimes, its always worth just sticking with it

[BoldBear]

Great report.
I hate fishing a float in a strong downstream wind but nethertheless it sounds as though you still had a good day in spite of the wind and I'm glad you got on well with your new Maver rod.

Keith