Thames maggot drowning June 2012
My first session of the new season wasnt how I expected it to be.
I had planned on it being an evening with barbel rods, but for the first week or so the river thames was really pushing through with all the rain we have had.
Opening weekend I booked the 16th off work, having promised my nephew a day out fishing, but the weather had the river pushing through way too quick to be able to set up most of the way down the lower.
I made excuses not to get out before now, the football was on (england v ukraine, euro2012) The next session I had been suffering from a head ache for about 3 days, so decided to sleep instead!!!
So anyway, back to today. The sun was out and the river had lost quite a bit of its pace and colour, so a quick call had my nephew all excited about fishing for the first time this year.
A quick trip to the tackle shop, and nearly a fiver later for a pint and half of staines' finest maggots, we arrived at the river and were greeted by a much slower moving river that much of the chocolatey brown colour had gone from.
Two 3mtr whips were set up, with 4xno4 stick floats, 3lb mainline, 2.6lb hooklengths and size 20 drennan spade hooks.
We started feeding maggots regularly, and it wasnt long before we started getting bites at about 2ft deep over the top of the cabbage weeds.
It wasnt long until we were getting regular bites and we started to catch some small perch and dace
We had a light spinning rod set up too as this particular area holds alot of perch and pike, so whenever the swim went a bit quiet, i would have a few casts with a small mepps spinner. The first few casts resulted in a couple of small perch, plus follows from loads of smaller ones trying their hardest to take the lure but not actually being big enough to get it in!!!.
Back to the whip fishing and we started to get bites again. My nephew managing to slap a perch around aunty claires face when swinging it in, resulting in lots of laughs and a scream from aunty claire!!
Getting a few more bites and landing some more small dace and perch, it wasnt long before the swim died again. So out went the mepps spinner amd 3rd cast i hooked a pike of around 6lb right where we had been fishing, it gave a spirited fight and managed to just make it into the large cabbage weed bed at my feet, transferring the hook into the weed and making its way off to sulk no doubt!
After the pike the swim never picked up again and we packed up shortly after having spent a couple of fun hours catching some little uns on maggots.
Upon packing up, I was met with the question of "when can we go again" so im hoping for no rain this week.
Thursday evening afterwork all be out for barbel rods somewhere, then maybe a few hours at the weekend maggot drowning again.
I had planned on it being an evening with barbel rods, but for the first week or so the river thames was really pushing through with all the rain we have had.
Opening weekend I booked the 16th off work, having promised my nephew a day out fishing, but the weather had the river pushing through way too quick to be able to set up most of the way down the lower.
I made excuses not to get out before now, the football was on (england v ukraine, euro2012) The next session I had been suffering from a head ache for about 3 days, so decided to sleep instead!!!
So anyway, back to today. The sun was out and the river had lost quite a bit of its pace and colour, so a quick call had my nephew all excited about fishing for the first time this year.
A quick trip to the tackle shop, and nearly a fiver later for a pint and half of staines' finest maggots, we arrived at the river and were greeted by a much slower moving river that much of the chocolatey brown colour had gone from.
Two 3mtr whips were set up, with 4xno4 stick floats, 3lb mainline, 2.6lb hooklengths and size 20 drennan spade hooks.
We started feeding maggots regularly, and it wasnt long before we started getting bites at about 2ft deep over the top of the cabbage weeds.
It wasnt long until we were getting regular bites and we started to catch some small perch and dace
We had a light spinning rod set up too as this particular area holds alot of perch and pike, so whenever the swim went a bit quiet, i would have a few casts with a small mepps spinner. The first few casts resulted in a couple of small perch, plus follows from loads of smaller ones trying their hardest to take the lure but not actually being big enough to get it in!!!.
Back to the whip fishing and we started to get bites again. My nephew managing to slap a perch around aunty claires face when swinging it in, resulting in lots of laughs and a scream from aunty claire!!
Getting a few more bites and landing some more small dace and perch, it wasnt long before the swim died again. So out went the mepps spinner amd 3rd cast i hooked a pike of around 6lb right where we had been fishing, it gave a spirited fight and managed to just make it into the large cabbage weed bed at my feet, transferring the hook into the weed and making its way off to sulk no doubt!
After the pike the swim never picked up again and we packed up shortly after having spent a couple of fun hours catching some little uns on maggots.
Upon packing up, I was met with the question of "when can we go again" so im hoping for no rain this week.
Thursday evening afterwork all be out for barbel rods somewhere, then maybe a few hours at the weekend maggot drowning again.
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