A day at Britford for the last weekend of the season

mithrandir · #1 03-08-2008, 03:36 PM

I went to the LAA waters at britford today, being the last weekend of the season I expected it to be busy, so I set off to get there early.
I arrived at 6-50 to find the carpark full of vans and about 15 guys unloading from them, there was a friendly match going on. I waited whilst they sorted out with Stuart, the bailiff, and asked him where he would recommend I fish to avoid the mobs, he said he was expecting loads of people today so I had better get to a swim soon, he directed me to a fallen tree on the old river, not too far from the carpark, and told me that peg had recently won a couple of matches. he said fish either side of the tree. Upstream trot to the tree, down stream feeder in the slack water.

So I walked down and found the swim empty, so set up downstream and plonked a feeder full of maggots into the slack water

Here is the swim

The day started well with some very small fish coming in on small hooks

Here is one of them

A Salmon Parr, so a few points for the day.

Not long after I got into something a bit more substantial, it stayed deep and never surfaced before it broke my 2 lb hooklink.

Upgraded the hooks to 14's and tried again.

Shortly after I was into another fish, this time a lovely perch.

A couple of passing anglers kindly photographed it for me, I decided to weigh this as it was a good size and found it was 1 lb 4 oz, equalling my PB.

This was turning out to be a good day.

I decided to run a small float down the swim, did not get much luck and even missed a couple of takes on the feeder rod whilst on the float rod, feeder moved and mashed maggots, typical chub signs.

I gave up with the float rod and concentrated on the single feeder rod, I was using a light feeder (30g) and sitting it in the slack water, if it got into the flow it would tumble on down stream, in the flow a 70g feeder would not hold bottom.

Eventually I connected with one of the chub bites and after a spirited fight I landed this fish.

I weighed this and it tipped the scales at 2lb 14oz, a new PB!!

after that I had a few smal fish, a couple of smaller chub, the at about 1-30 I got into another perch

This one weighed in at 1lb 6oz, another PB.

I fished on until 3 when I ran out of bait, so packed up and went home.

Happy with two new PB's and a new species as well