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3.9.21 - Willows then Hambridge

Bayleaf the Gardener

Entry posted by Bayleaf the Gardener in Willows/Hambridge

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Well, if you'd told me I was going to have two personal bests since records resumed last June after my 20-odd year hiatus from angling, I'd be anticipating a fab day, though by anyone else's standards it probably wasn't. After my haul of ten (10) carp on Tuesday evening, they really didn't want to know today. After an hour or two without a sniff on the method feeder, I maggotted and hemped-up a zone about 5ft out from a bankside shrub and swapped for a float.

This brought fourteen roach, of which eight were 6 ounces or others, including two half-pounders and two 12-ouncers. Really chunky they were, the two bigger boys giving a proper fight and needing landing. A few small perch and a breamlet joined the fun. Something also took the bait and rocketed out towards the middle, but after the clutch screamed for a good five seconds, the size 16 hook lost it's hold. Shame. 

The afternoon sun brought the carp to the surface. One guy fishing biscuits, or similar, had at one point over twenty terns looping overhead and diving for his freebies, so I didn't get involved. I tried a bird-resistant zig-rig suspended a foot below the surface for a while, but not convinced that an inch of yellow foam rubber could really catch anything, I aborted for a final hour on the river at Hambridge.

Here, though plenty of maggots were chewed and two minnows snared, the one true bite brought a dashing 1lb 12 chub to the net, a tribute to the advice I'd received previously to use a microbarbed hook (cheers, Chris).

OK, so I admit that 12-ounce roach and sub-2lb chub aren't much to write home about, let alone blog, but they will be memorable fish while I try to get the hang of this sport

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The Flying Tench

In my 20 year sojourn in Newbury I never caught a roach from the lakes over 8oz. Congrats! A novel way of fishing to my view, which brought the results!

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Bayleaf the Gardener

 Cheers, F.T.  With so much bait going in to Willows and, to my here say knowledge, no pike,  there must be some decent roach in there.

You're right about that tail, Chris. Do you think I could get away with calling it a 3lb-er? or a mermaid?

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