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It's that time of year again


Anderoo

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I love the beginning of autumn. You can just sense that the seasons are turning, the nights pulling in and the air turning just a bit chillier. You just know the fish will be feeding!

 

The weed starts to die back and the big old perch start to swagger. Pike start striking and swirling. The roach shoal a bit tighter. The chub at dusk might just be a monster.

 

The Thames above Oxford looks superb, the best it's looked all year. It's time to gather some lobworms and start exploring those hidden spots where, I'm sure, the big perch must frequent.

 

Roll on Saturday.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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I love the beginning of autumn. You can just sense that the seasons are turning, the nights pulling in and the air turning just a bit chillier. You just know the fish will be feeding!

 

The weed starts to die back and the big old perch start to swagger. Pike start striking and swirling. The roach shoal a bit tighter. The chub at dusk might just be a monster.

 

The Thames above Oxford looks superb, the best it's looked all year. It's time to gather some lobworms and start exploring those hidden spots where, I'm sure, the big perch must frequent.

 

Roll on Saturday.

 

It was a really nice autumnal morning this morning! The first thing I though of was its almost perch time!

 

I can't wait until the weekend!

 

Rich

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I felt a cold wind for the fisrt time the other day and thought the same, nearly time for perch. Im dubious that the roach will be shoaled up for a good while yet, and just wish for a cold winter with some good hard frosts in october. Thats when il start getting excited. Can it be as mild or milder than last year? I really hope not.

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Last night the air smelt of autumn for the first time. Impossible to describe but I could feel it and sense it. I don't mean bonfires or anything man made. It was just the earth's natural scent.

 

I don't remember having a winter last year.......................

The best time to fish is when you have a chance.

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Indeed it is.....

 

Temperatures dropped to almost 5 degrees last night, here in Oxfordshire.

 

With the evenings drawing in and the waft of cooler air coming in I begin to really look forward to the start of GMT and that golden last hour before sunset and hour after.

 

Just please, please, please don't rain all winter in Oxfordshire or there will be much float making done again this winter......

' The "Dandy of the Stream", a veritable Beau Brummell, that is the Perch and well he knows it!' --The Observers's Book of Freshwater Fishes of the British Isles

 

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Talk about waxing lyrical it makes me very excited about the autumn and winter.

 

As much as summer is pleasant and spring is exciting the autumn and winter are the best.

 

A good angler can have great catches in the winter and the rivers here fish there best then. Stillwaters are clear of weed and you can catch fantastic roach perch chubb pike and even carp.

 

Whats more you can do it between 8am and 5pm because thats the daylight and be home for some hot food and a cold beer before the family are all in bed.

 

The roach and chub shoal up in several places in my local river in the autumn and I noticed several roach there last night and 5 huge chub. More roach to move in yet but t is a little early. Do you think we are in for a hard winter?

 

John

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John,

 

You summed it up nicely.

 

Personally, and from a selfish point of view, I hope we experience a very harsh, cold, dry winter in Oxfordshire for two main reasons:

 

(1) The water table is still dangerously high throughout the county and any prolonged period of rainfall with an extreme at the end of it, will, I fear bring the scenes I witnessed 6 weeks ago back to the county. I would never want to see my Countyship companions experience that again.

 

(2) I simply adore the crisp, cold winter days and glorious sunsets it often brings. You often question your sanity when you are sitting in sub-zero temperatures like an insulated escapee from the local sanitorium, you have run out of tea, and your hands stopped working hours ago but when that fish breaks the black flowing surface and graces your net you cannot beat that feeling. I often find that it becomes much easier to spot the wildlife as they are all out on the hunt for food. Plus when its hideously cold you sit then there dreaming of those balmy summer evenings and it keeps you motivated. You then get home, have a frightfull hot bath, a blazer of a madras, and plan your tactics for the next day..........

 

Bring the Autumn and Winter feast on!

' The "Dandy of the Stream", a veritable Beau Brummell, that is the Perch and well he knows it!' --The Observers's Book of Freshwater Fishes of the British Isles

 

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As a pike angler all this talk of Autumn & winter is getting me excited too.

 

Been quite a few cold mornings this week down south...hopefully we'll have a nice, dry winter with lots of crisp, frosty mornings. Can't beat going out piking when it's like that even though it's not supposed to be the best of conditions!

 

A lot of good waters open up and allow deadbaiting again on the 1st of October

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It's a time of year where the all-rounder can really have some excellent and varied days. Up at dawn, hopefully to find some lovely cool air and a touch of frost, to watch the sun rise and the world come to life with some early morning piking. Mid-morning, move downstream to steady, deepish water to trot for roach with flake and mashed bread. In the afternoon, move to perchy spots and try for a monster perch as the light goes. After darkness has fallen, switch to bread in a feeder and have a steaming cup of tea and the chill descends, waiting for a giant chub or roach.

 

And because the days are shorter, there's no need to get up at some horrific time in the morning, and you can get home to warm up and reflect on your day before it's really late.

 

Lovely!

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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Look here Anderoo

 

your doing it again.

 

Making us all gooiy eye'd about sitting out in the cold with wet hands and freezing our nuts off.

 

The anti's will think we are all mad.!!!!!!!!!

 

 

A Passion for angling with breadflake as you have just said was one of my favourite episodes. Also fancied the grayling but a bit rare in suffolk.

 

Do need the rain here in regular small doses to keep rivers flowing otherwise they are low and clear and do not fish. But the stillwater carp fisheries can be brilliant for good roach if you can keep away from those pescy carp.

 

But yes coming home to a hot open fire, a hot bath, a hot wife, and better still a pint of real ale, well that what its all about.

 

You should have been a poet.

 

John

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