Autumn River Glory & Bad Fish Photography

[Maceo]

At the risk of boring people about the delights of the upper Thames, how lovely the old father was looking today with the first bits of autumn well on the way. Nice and warm t-shirt weather most of the day though.

The fish were biting well apart from a quiet patch around lunchtime. I used a float adapter thingy for the first time with the idea of changing wagglers a few times to see which works best, but in the end I stuck with a 2g not loaded peacock all day. So I needn't even have bothered with the adapter really. Worked very well and showed the progress of the bait sinking nicely. It's a Drennan float and I always find their stuff to be pretty good.

I also used a bigger hook this time - a size 10 - with the idea of fishing some luncheon meat. Persevered with it for a while, but wasn't getting bites from it. Tried it again a couple of times later too, but nothing.

Alternated then between a bunch of three and four maggots or two sweetcorn on the big hook. Both got plenty of bites, although sinking the maggots past the bleak was a problem. Half the time the float didn't even sink down as the bleak destroyed the maggots in the first foot of water! I didn't loose feed maggots - just used hemp and a few bits of corn, but that still didn't stop them. Casting further upstream away from where I was feeding helped though.

Got a flukey little perch with the rod on the rest and the float out of the water but the bait hanging about a foot under the surface! First one of those I've seen for a few weeks, but am determined to try lure fishing down there soon so maybe there'll be some bigger ones.

Well here's some photos from the session. Apologies for the dire fish photography. I don't like to keep them out of the water for very long, so things are always a bit rushed. I need to aim a bit lower.



The beautiful autumn upper Thames. The rod busting hawthorn tree at this swim is to the right. It also means that the ocassional canoeist shooting along suddenly appears out of the shrubbery. "Sorry - didn't see you there mate" they say. Hopefully the fish can't see me either!


These reeds to the left hand side of the swim were 5 feet tall last week. I landed a float in the middle of them with an over-enthusiastic strike. Now they've either been chopped down or more likely eaten by the cows who have now arrived in this field.

At one point I turned round to find about 40 of them in a steadily decreasing semi-circle approaching me about 10 feet away. Shooing them away didn't work - they just started closing in again as soon as I turned my back on 'em. Had to resort to pinging little clods of dried mud at them with the catty. That moved them on....


The net. A few dace and some decent roach. The bigger hook, bulkier bait and heavier tackle seemed to attract the bigger fish in the main. flukey perch in the bottom left hand corner...


Half a roach and a lot of background. Like I say, I was in a rush!



Another bad photo of a different roach.

[Maddison_Twatter]

I think I need to get out the old float rod and do a bit of trotting, nice pics and fish , well done

[pingu]

nice one

dave

[SIMPLE MAN]

Well done that man,a very nice report and a good day down the river

[BoldBear]

Great report as usual; sounds like you had a lovely day trotting on the Thames but had a slight problem getting your bait through the clouds of Bleak and smaller Dace.

Have you tried putting a BB or No 1 shot a foot from the hook and a size 8 half way between the large shot and a size 18 Hook baited with caster to try and get your bait through the cloud of Bleak?

Cast then closely follow your cast with some loose fed casters, hopefully the fish will leave your hookbait (which will be sinking faster than the loosefeed) and concentrate on the loosefeed which will be slowly following your hookbait down. However you may need to put the losefeed slightly upstream so that any still left will hit the bottom nearer your hookbait.

If this doesn't work try burying your hookbait inside a small lump of groundbait which will break apart one it hits the bottom leaving your hookbait exposed on the bottom?.

This might get through to any larger fish that may be on the bottom below the shoal of Bleak and smaller Dace.

Anyway I'm glad you had a lovely day trotting on the Thames with a nice catch of Roach, Dace and a Perch.
nice one.

[Maceo]

Thanks Bold Bear - great advice as always. I like the idea of wrapping the hook bait in some gound bait. It certainly sounds like it should work! I'll give that a go.

I have to say though that although these bleak are supposed to be near the top, I've found plenty that seem willing to dive right down to the bottom and attack the bait after it has sunk properly. I even caught one when using plastic hemp on the hook and they're not supposed to like hemp. They seem so greedy that they attack anything small enough to fit in their gob. It's for that reason I've been fishing with corn.

I haven't fished down there with casters yet, but will perhaps give it a go sometime soon. The plan with loose feeding seems a good one too.

I got to talk with the club secretary from the club who own the stretch a short while ago. Amongst other things, he said that the river goes 'dead' after the first frosts and that the roach and dace disappear completely. He mentioned a Christmas match last year where only one fish was caught all day!

If the bleak disappear once the water cools down (I'm very much hoping that's going to be the case), then that's going to allow me to vary my tactics a bit more. Hopefully I'll be able to prove them wrong about the winter fishing.

I also walked the local River Windrush yesterday with the family. Looks quite interesting and there are one or two stretches that I quite fancy dropping a hook into. It's a small river - more a stream in some places - only about 20 feet wide at maximum. It's also pretty shallow and fast flowing in some spots although there are some deeper and slower parts and some slack water by fallen trees, reeds and other obstructions (those are the parts that I think to fish).

Might give it a go on Friday this week. Busy tomorrow and rain forecast for Wed and Thurs. It'll either be a short session down there or the long awaited spinning session for perch and pike down on the Thames.

[Gavin Hong]

Nice report and great photo view,the fishes are beautiful