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About this blog

the downs and ups of a pleasure angler

Entries in this blog

Thames roaching 31.10.11

Went up to ol' Father Thames for a couple of hours in search of Rutilis. I spoke to a chap who had been fishing from his boat 'Had 4 roach this morning, nothing since then'. But it turned out one of them was between one and a half and two pounds. Phew! Though of course it wasn't weighed...   No flow at all except when the lock opened. Started off on groundbait feeder for some reason with magic bread. In the first hour had 4 fish, 3 of them chunky, best 9 oz. Then switched to float/maggot. Ins
The Flying Tench

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Thames perch 26.2.16

3-5.30pm WT 6 degC   I feel at a bit of a loss watching 'Ol' Father Thames' sheeting by in winter, and wondering where on earth the fish will be. First I tried a bit of float fishing with single maggot, but my eyesight isn't good enough to trot at the distance needed in fastish water, so I fished very close (2 feet) from the bank, though still 6 feet of water. Plenty of small dace, but I had no faith I would get anything bigger.   So I switched to maggot feeder, just over a rod out. First
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Thames perch - 20 &22 Oct 2021

Attractor groundbait dowsed with liquid worm, hook bait lobworms, straight lead. On Wednesday I found a new swim where I was getting bites from good perch. I would play them for 20 seconds or so and think they were securely hooked, and then they got off. I just landed one of about 1.5 lbs, but lost 4 or 5 good fish. Today, Friday, I tried again with the same approach.  4 small ones and a lovely 2 lb 9oz. It started well, but after the 2 pounder the swim went dead. I assume the fight sp
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The Flying Tench in general

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Thames Perch 25 Oct to 1 Nov 2021

25th Oct Same approach (lobworms on straight lead and Liquid Worm attractant). 3 nice perch 2lb 6 oz, 2lb 8 oz and a smaller one approx 1lb. 28th Oct and 1st Nov Just when I thought I'd got the perch sussed, 2 blanks. Today it felt very cold to me, I'll have to get the thermals out. I got several bites, though. In two cases they bit off the worm just below the hook!
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Thames lock cut roach 25.1.16

3-5pm, WT 7DegC I chose this lock cut to avoid the wind, but found it was in the opposite direction to the forecast, so did prove a slight problem. Plan A was to fish fine for roach (float, single maggot), as in my last blog entry on the lake, though I had a plan B (lobworms for perch.). But this proved unnecessary as first cast I had a nice roach of about 6oz. Then for the first half hour it was almost bite a chuck with quality roach between 6 and 11oz, ten in all averaging 8oz, so that was 5l
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The Flying Tench

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Thames lock cut roach 23.8.21

4-5pm. I had two false starts in other swims so only left myself an hour in bright sunlight. Pleasantly surprised, though. About 10 roach up to half a pound up in the water on hemp and tares. To me it's a slight puzzle. My general impression is that the lock cuts are pretty well devoid of fish in the summer. Why is Sandford an exception? Maybe I'm wrong and there are more fish in the others than I suppose. I must give a couple of the ones nearer my home another try. To be fair, the only one I've
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Thames chub and perch 24.10.14

3.45-5.45pm Brief session on a lovely peg where the water flows somewhat faster than normal for the Thames - 6 feet of water just beyond the rod tip. The water had plenty of colour, a lovely green-grey, and the skies were grey too - ideal conditions! My target was roach. I had plenty on hemp and tares here early in September, and they took the tares immediately - no long wait as per many venues. My first task was to see whether they were still into this bait in late October.   The answer aft
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Thames bream 2.8.21

Fished a new stretch of the Thames for a couple of hours this morning. Spent most of the time fishing feeder with double caster on  the hook, just 3 rod lengths out. Just caught gudgeon plus a couple of very small roach. Then I switched to 4mm carp pellet and, for the last 10 minutes or so, cast out into the flow and had a 3lb 7oz bream. Not big by Thames  standards, but it was actually the best Thames bream I have had, so I was very pleased.
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Thames bait-dropper, pellet 19.8.2019

7 - 8.30pm For the first time in the Thames I used bait-dropper. I cast out 10 bait-droppers full of 3mm pellets, and then fished feeder with 6mm halibut pellet about 5 rods out. At first it was bite-a-chuck, and very positive bites, too. Within 5 minutes I had a 12oz roach, which is actually my pb for the Thames. Then they got a bit cagey, and I missed a lot of bites. I wondered if the hair was too long and they were sucking the bait and not really having the hook in their mouth? Next time I m
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Swansea marina (River Tawe) 14-16.9.2021

Three days in Swansea fishing as part of a week's family holiday on the Gower. It has to be said that this was salt water fishing (well, maybe a bit brackish), and my experience of such contests is that the fish normally come away with a 'clean sheet'!  Though on this occasion I had built up my courage by watching a youtube video by some local youngsters who made it all look rather easy, catching small fish of a wide range of species. So I was hoping to get plenty of bites and catch even if the
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Sunday 6th Dec

Unusually had a free Sunday evening and decided to have a short recce (plus wetting a line) for tomorrow's outing. I couldn't decide (for tomorrow) whether to fish a swim on the free stretch which is generally supposed to be good when there is a fair flow, or to fish one of the lakes. One problem with the Kennet free stretch swim is that the car parking charges now are horrendous, so fishing after dark when you can park for a pound is one option. So I set out at 5.30pm for a swim where West Berk
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Sunday 14 March 2010

Last week spent a couple of hours after pike - spinning, wobbling, ledgering - to no avail   Today 4.30-6.30pm WT 8degC   My normal fishing day is Monday, but that would be too late so I sneaked out of a family gathering today, Sunday, to get a last couple of hours of the river season. Went to a swim on the flowing canal where I lost a good chub a few weeks ago and trotted maggot. Not a touch for half an hour. My concept of trotting is that the float dips every couple of runs down, so was
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Summer roach 29.8.16

7.30 - 8.30pm   A hot, bright bank holiday Monday, and there was only about an hour of reasonable light (not too bright, not too dark) to try for roach. Float fished hemp 'n tares. Two nice roach of about 8 and 10 oz, plus some smaller ones. Quite encouraging, and I shall be back in more roachy conditions. Perhaps I should have 'lit up' and carried on a bit? But the bites seemed to have tailed off, and din-dins appealed.   Point to remember next time. I started with an 18 hook, but failed to
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Spinning for perch 8.7.13

A hot, sunny, clear day. Not exactly a day for perch you might say, except I once read something by Archie Braddock which claimed the opposite. He claimed that in summer the best approach was to go out in the middle of a hot day and trot worm at half depth. Phew! I tried it once a few years ago on the Kennet at Speen Moor. I only had an hour but, to my astonishment, I had a two pound perch! Admittedly I fished in shadow.   Today it was so hot and humid I just didn't feel like fishing till the
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Speen Moor 24.6.13

6.30-9.45pm   The aim of the trip was a general recce as to how SM was looking, and also to try and catch a decent dace as I had heard some had come out recently. And my pb is a mingy 6.5 oz!   The first swim was challenging with a swift flow, and as I was trotting and feeding maggots by hand the bites were all about 20 yds away. First trot down I though I had achieved my objective but, alas, the convex anal fin showed it to be a small chub of about 12oz. It was enjoyable fishing. I caught a
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Side-Planer 22.11.13

3-4pm. Cold bright day. Not really a proper session. I fancied giving the side-planer a walk along the flowing canal with a Mepps attached. I've caught jacks on the s-p with wobbled smelt, but never had anything on a lure and I decided to have a go. But I lacked confidence as to what was happening to the lure. There was a fair flow, and not being able to see the lure, and not having direct contact with it, I had little idea how deep it was - and I felt it needed to be near the bottom on such a c
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Sea fishing near Swanage 8.9.15

5.30-6.30am I'd never caught a sea fish on a lure from the bank, and didn't really know where to start. I have memories of casting out into the ocean in vague hope, but nothing coming of it, and not really expecting anything to come of it! But on this occasion a highly skilled local angler offered to take me out.   The first thing was that we met in the dark at 5am in the morning! After a short walk we clambered down rocks, also in the dark, with him giving me guidance all the way. Quite an a
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Same again 24.10.11

Same place as last week, same bait, but swim pretty dead. Had one nice half-pound roach just before I packed up at dusk, but that was it.   Hmm, the temptation to switch to perch is getting greater! I'll be interested to see how the drop-shotters get on as it gets colder.
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Rusty's chub live again!

Monday 27 Sept, 3-6pm   With Rusty's permission I decided to have a crack at his chub. I passed by earlier in the day and had a look, and at least one of them was there. But as Rusty had found, they weren't easy.   First I tried lure fishing - and just lost a couple of good lures. Then I tried a popped-up lobworm. I must admit I was a bit worried that my ham-fisted lure fishing might have spooked them. Also, even with the rod set up with the tip high the pull of the current racing through
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Rumours of roach Monday 15 Nov 2010

I heard of some decent roach coming from the canal, but the bad news was that the weather was forecast to be clear and sunny. Still, there was hope as it was also meant to be foggy, clearing slowly in places. I figured the roach would like the fog, so did something almost unheard of for me - got up early!   Actually my wife's alarm normally goes off at 6.30am, but my normal response is to groan and sink into a kind of pseudo dream world where I am dictator of the world, and think of all the h
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Rumour of roach 9.9.13

I had some realistic plans for carp or perch for today, and then I heard a rumour about some good roach in one of the harder gravel pits. Typically, I gave up on the carp and perch and had a crack at the roach. Not a touch! Always the same - me and roach! I won't bore you with the details.
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Rudd and Roach at Grove Pond 30.6.21

This was an experimental session, feeding hemp but trying different hook baits up in the water to see which worked best. My conclusion, at least today, was maggot for the rudd and double caster for the roach. My best fish were a rudd of 13oz on maggot and a roach of 14oz on double caster. The casters were dark red, and would therefore have floated except for the weight of the hook, and so would have sunk very slowly which may have appealed to the roach. As well as tares I also tried artific
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Roach up in the water 9.5.2021

Grove Pond 3.30-5.30pm I'd been told this lake holds roach up to about a pound, so the aim of today was to start a quest for these (also rudd and crucians) by experimenting with a new bait, meat. I've used big chunks of luncheon meat ledgering for chub and barbel, but only once tried smaller pieces on the float for smaller fish. I started with maggot to build confidence. Quite slow, I soon found small pieces of meat approx 5mm square got just as many bites, and I hooked a couple of sma

Roach from a 'commercial' 18.3.13

Court Farm, near Aldermaston 3.45 - 6.30pm A.T. 8degC dropping, W.T. 5degC After all that snow yesterday I wasn't too optimistic, specially when the only other anglers on the lake when I arrived said they hadn't had a touch all day. But I think they had been mainly targeting the normally very willing carp. My challenge, however, was how to avoid said carp. I fished fine, float-fished maggot and caster, and although it was never bite-a-chuck I managed 9 roach, the best about 12 oz, and several
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roach and perch 27.12.11 2-4pm

I went out yesterday walking the canal bank with a spinning rod in my hand looking for perch swims. Just one small perch to a spinner, but then it wasn't in the water that much. I found some likely swims, but it involved walking about a mile and a half which is too much for my back really.   Today I felt I needed to rest the back, so went to my most reliable roach swim on the canalised river armed with bread, plus a few maggots and worms left over from last week. With water temperature a resp
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