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Big rivers in summer - where are the fish?


The Flying Tench

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Am I right in thinking that, in summer, the fish will mainly be out in the middle where there's maximum flow? I fish the Thames which I'd describe as a medium flow river.

 

I realise there are exceptions. Like I think they will still hide under boats, even in summer. Do you agree?

 

A related issue is where they will be vis a vis depth. Am I right that roach will tend to be up in the water, and will certainly like a dropping bait? That's a nuisance for me, as currently I can't see a float much further than under the rod tip, but that may hopefully change after a cataract op.

 

And perch, now that's another question. Half of me thinks they'll be close in cos they don't like much flow. But on the Thames they can be very active chasing the bleak out in the middle, you see the bleak jumping out of the water.

 

So am I right that ledgering has it's problems for both roach and perch in mid summer?

 

What's your experience of summer fishing?

 

The reasons I find fishing the Thames in summer so much more difficult in summer than in winter are that there's little flow, which makes working out where the fish will be more difficult, and all the little fish are ravenous and everywhere, which makes catching the ones you want that much harder. On top of that, there's boat traffic, dog walkers, swimmers, hikers, and all the rest of it.

 

In answer to your question, I have to say that in general they could be anywhere. I've had perch, roach and chub tight to the bank, out in the middle, far bank. Tight to cover and snags and out in open water. On the bottom and mid-depth. Ditto bream, although generally on the bottom.

 

Except in flood conditions, I don't think the Thames ever flows too hard for fish to tolerate. In general, I'd be looking to fish in the flow than out of it, even if it seems fast on the surface. Even in winter, when I fish for roach and chub it's almost always in the flow. Perch possibly less so, but with the flow so much slower on the bottom I wouldn't dismiss it.

 

So, this is the problem I have too, not much to narrow it down unlike in winter!

 

I wouldn't worry about legering, that will still definitely work. You can use a long hooklength if you want a slowly dropping bait. On the upper Thames I'd probably try to find steady, flowing water and start fishing out to the middle - get some feed out and just see what happens. If it's no good, move to somewhere a bit different (deeper/shallower, faster/slower, deep margin/outside of sharp bend, etc.). Just try things til something works and then remember it for next time. Time of day is important too - the middle of a hot summer day might be pretty poor regardless of everything else, dusk might well be better.

 

The other main difference between winter and summer is that in winter, they often won't come to you, regardless of how you do the baiting. You need to be in the right place. In summer, I think it matters less as they're more mobile and more likely to move to a baited area. So if you're in generally a decent area you should be OK. E.g. if you fishing for roach and chub which are hanging around at mid depth, if you get some heavy groundbait on the bottom they will move down to eat it. Doing that will usually get past all the bleak and other small fish up in the surface layers.

Edited by Anderoo

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

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Thanks everyone, Andrew's comments are particularly relevant to me as he's another Thames Angler. Re using a long tail to get a dropping bait when ledgering, it makes me wonder if that shouldn't be standard practice for deep rivers in summer. I'll certainly give it more of a try.

john clarke

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Tigger (and anyone else who will post pictures)

 

Intrigued by Tiggers photos I decided to investigate barbel compared to our sucker family.

 

"Barbus barbus is indigenous to eastern flowing rivers in England. Anthropogenic modification of the physical characteristics - water depth, velocity, and temperature; channel width; water chemistry, substrate and suspended sediment; amount of cover that control the quality of a river as habitat for these fish. They are all elongated, streamlined and with the slightly humped form that results in the fish being forced on to the bottom by the flow."

 

I found this interesting and thought I'd pass it along.

 

http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/27994/1/PhD%20thesis_Tea%20Basic.pdf (2017)

 

Phone

Hi Phone, maybe the reason why a lot of us don't post pictures is they (Like Me) find it so hard to do & have given up trying??

 

Maybe you could explain it in easy steps!!

 

ie, the photo's in "My Pictures" on the Laptop don't have a URL (as far as I can see) - just a jpeg number.

 

Thanks in advance.

Martin.

Edited by Martin56

Fishin' - "Best Fun Ya' can 'ave wi' Ya' Clothes On"!!

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Martin,

 

You have ask the "least" capable person on AN. However, for "pictures" I go to google images and define what it is I am looking for.

 

Click on a picture and it becomes enlarged and you can "visit" the site where it came from. Then "go back"

Now highlight the picture starting in one corner and keeping the left mouse key down move the cursor diagonally until the picture turns blue.

Right click and select "copy image" (some will be copyrighted and some will be incompatible with AN (?) )

You don't have any problem posting URL's do you?

 

You have probably noticed I have no personal pictures on AN. That's because I don't know HOW. I tried posting several and even sought out help when trying to post my quills - setup - etc. (remember that thread?) Another story but I am now fishing the "spot" since it is very urban and super accessible. Someday, I will even try again to post my mug, you'll be impressed how handsome I am.

 

Phone

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Thanks for that Phone, but it was really my personal photo's I meant. I could do it - a couple of years ago I posted those spinner/spoon blanks I sold to a few members here on A.N.

The toolbar on here seems to have changed since then though.

Fishin' - "Best Fun Ya' can 'ave wi' Ya' Clothes On"!!

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Pictures are a pain. It used to be possible to directly upload them to the forum but now you need to upload then to an image hosting site and paste in a link to the image. Great for those that want their personal stuff in the cloud, not so great for anyone else - I've also had issues in the past with a dodgy image hosting side that changed all my picks for pictures of naked ladies - probably the most interesting rod building thread on the internet.

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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Pictures are a pain. It used to be possible to directly upload them to the forum but now you need to upload then to an image hosting site and paste in a link to the image. Great for those that want their personal stuff in the cloud, not so great for anyone else - I've also had issues in the past with a dodgy image hosting side that changed all my picks for pictures of naked ladies - probably the most interesting rod building thread on the internet.

The current Toolbar (As I suspected) seems pretty well useless for us mere Anglers who simply want to post our fishy pic's then. bb.gif So it's not just thick old Me!!

Fishin' - "Best Fun Ya' can 'ave wi' Ya' Clothes On"!!

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This hosting site seems to be OK, but it's still cluncky to do images.

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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I rarely get a chance to fish the Thames nowadays but have fished it a great deal in the past especially at Oxford (mainly Medley) and more occasionally at Clifton Hampden which is much closer to Didcot ( I actually lived there until I was 3!). I found Medley a great float venue in summer, fishing hemp and tares or hemp and caster for roach, just over the weeds in gravelly swims. There are also plenty of bream in some swims and these mostly come out on the leger in mid-river but you need to fish the right swims, using a feeder with groundbait and something like worm and caster on the hook. The Channel below Medley is better for chub than Medley nowadays. On Medley in winter I've done well in recent years using a tiny moving feeder with liquidized bread in the feeder and a big piece of flake on a size 10 hook, getting mainly roach but it's a skillful game, almost like trotting a feeder so the setup has to be right as does the flow.

 

Clifton is a deeper venue with some bream swims - I once drew right on them in a big ODAA match and had 10 bream to win, again on the feeder, but generally did better on a waggler with maggots, feeding hemp, catching roach, and I wasn't afraid to use big bodied wagglers with lots of shot down to get through the bleak.

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