River Thames lure session June 09

I have only managed a couple of half hearted sessions, whilst out for a drive along the river checking out spots and asking if others have been catching, so it was nice to actually have a wander along the river and fish a few spots with lures.

Claire had her little jig rod and I had my heavy lure rod for working rubber baits and big spinner baits.

We worked baits around a few areas that I have caught numbers of pike from in the past but to no avail.
The area is very attractive to pike, cabbage weed covers pretty much all the swims we fished, but we still didnt catch.

The river still looks like black tea at the moment, so im sure it has something to do with the lack of action.


My barbel rods are still sat in the corner, bait is ready, rucksack is sorted im just waiting for a free evening when I can have my first proper session out.

From the reports I have seen, there are a few carp and barbel being caught, and plenty of bream, so Im hoping to get out next week and give it a go

Start of the 2009 season

Its been a fairly slow start to the season on the River Thames, from what I have read alot of people are putting the lack of fish being caught down to the Algae that has coloured the river into a browny tea colour, it certainly seems to have played its part in putting the fish off. To date I have only heard of a handful of carp to 26lb, and a 10lb barbel, thats from 3 different forums catch reports (cemex, BFW and Maggotdrowning) so people are either not reporting their captures, or more likely are not actually catching anything!!

I have managed a couple of very short sessions with the jigging rod in search or predators, but to no avail, Im sure it was not helped by the guy who asked to set up in the swim I was fishing in last night, its only a small swim and I was casting the lures around it, what could I say really!! So he proceeded to set up next to me, hindering my casting and standing right near the edge (I have found that most lure takes come within feet from the bank) so that probably didnt help, but ill be back in the swim soon enough, it looks like it had some very good potential, quite deep close in with over hanging trees left right and opposite. So im sure there will be at least some carp present, maybe some big perch or chub, and hopefully some Barbel. So im hoping that before long Ill be able to get the barbel rods out and have a proper go.

I also found a spot that is frequented by some large carp, so thats got to be worth a try very soon, I think I should try and trickle some bait in there to get them going.

I really want Claire to catch some perch on her set up this year, they are her favourite fish, so it would be nice for her to catch some. Lets just hope that she doesnt scream again when a pike takes her lure close in, like she did the first time she lure fished, I thought she was gonna throw the rod in!!!!

My aims for this year are -
Firstly to fish more than I did last season (I think I managed 6 sessions last year!!)
To catch more barbel
To catch a river carp
To help Claire catch a PB perch (her PB is 1lb6oz)
I also want to up my river pike pb which currently stands at 13.04, although my lure best stands at 11.08

Thames PB 13.04

















Lure caught PB 11.08
















I also have several items of tackle that I have acquired, but not used yet, so hopefully through the new season Ill be able to put them through their paces and offer a review on them.
These items of tackle / bait are -
Delkim plus alarms, nash hooligan 2 rod pod, Enterprise quick strike butt grips and Fresh prawn, spicy shellfish boilies.


Good luck to everyone who is getting out and doing a bit, I hope you land the monsters you dream of, hopefully my time will come soon

tight lines

Tony

Personal best list

Below is my list of Personal bests -

Chub - 5.10

Tench - 6.00

Bream - 6.02

Perch - 2.15

Thames Barbel - 9.06

Carp 24.10

Overall Barbel PB - 9.08

Pike - 21.00

Thorpe Lea carp session 09th March 09

I decided to have a session at Thorpe Lea, as I had missed the last few days of the RIVER season due to Jake being poorly, I needed to get out and stretch my fishing legs!!

Its been so long since I have been out I almost forgot what I was doing, I had to stop and have a think about what I was setting up and how.
I decided to fish as I had successfully done in the past, with 15mm tiget nut boilies with small pva bags of 3mm green swim stim pellets.

Both rods were set up with 12lb mainline, small korda flying backleads, 3ft of 45lb ESP leadcore, one with a korda lead clip, esp strip tease hooklength, the other with a free running inline lead with korda supernatural hooklength and size 6 owner hooks.

I had a few new items that I wanted to test out also, my new delkim plus alarms, which I had only previously used once on the river for a few hours. I also had my new solar hanga-ball line clips on my solar bobbins that I had not used before.

I didnt arrive until just after 11am due to various reasons, one of which was being up through the night with Jake.
The lake has changed ownership since I last visited, as cemex didnt renew their lease in may 08, so it was taken up by a guy named Gary, who has certainly improved it quite a bit, carpark has been relayed, there are now toilets onsite, plus an office with tackle, food, tickets etc.
One thing I wasnt sure of was that you have to now pick your swim before you set off from the office. there was a guy in the peg I wanted (peg 6) so i opted to walk round and fish the other side of the island in peg 55. It was only a short 100yd walk from the car, but once I arrived in the swim, there was a guy carrying his gear round from the other side of the lake. I waited for him to get back and asked if he was using both pegs, turns out he was with his mate and would be!!!
So I walked back to the office told them the swim was taken and that I woudl set up in peg 4, which was a swim away from where I wanted to fish. After checking with the guy in peg 6 I found that I had quite alot of water to go at, basically from the point of the island which was slightly to my right, to as far left as I could cast as there was not a swim down to my left for quite along way.
One problem I encountered was the water levels were up about 8inchs so my peg was underwater, which meant I could only stand about 4foot from the waters ege, which didnt help casting to the left hand side! I got around this by jumping into peg 5 and cast out then passing the rod over the bush and onto tthe rod rests.
I should really have just set up in peg 5 which would have made it easier to cast, but as I was fishing down the left, I didnt want to risk someone setting up in peg 4, because that would then effectively give me not alot of water to go at, with guys to my left and right.

Both rods were positioned about 10 yards short of the island, any closer and the birds dive down and grab your bait!! Once rod was fishing on single tiger nut boilie with a pva bag of 5 other baits, the other rod was fished with a single tiger nut boilie tipped with flouro pop up corn. I had watched part 2 of the free korda dvd the day before and these guys really advocate the use of bright pop-ups to tip off your standard bottom feed bait. So I thought I would try it, as well as being visual, it also makes the boilie slightly lighter, so the carp would find it easier to hoover up.

Due to the difficulty in casting, I caught the tree on one of the casts causing the rig to get caught in the tree, snapping the hair rig in the process!!
So I retied another rig in the supernatural with size 6 owner hook, this was then recast to the spot. I then decided to recast the second rod, upon checking the rig I noticed the coating on the esp stripteaze wasnt sitting right, my own fault due to my crap rig making skills.
NOTE TO SELF - MAKE MORE CARP RIGS UP THE SAME SIZE - I have a rig wallet full of rigs, but not one of them is the same, so when im fishing If I need to change rigs I need to make one up from scratch!!!

I put out about 50 freebies via the catapult over the area covering both rods, my thoughts being that now the warmer weather was returning the fish might be on the hunt for some grub.

It didnt work, I fished until 4pm and packed up biteless!!!
I have blanked on there before, but to be honest to blank on a water with so many fish in it is kinda bad, but saying that, looking around the lake I only saw one fish caught and that was to the guy in peg 6!!

I suppose in hindsight, I should have tried harder, I was just content in being fishing, it had been quite a while since I was last out proper fishing, I think I was to content to sit there and wait for the fish to come to me.
I didnt see any fish movement at all through the day, but during the day before when I had popped in there I had seen fish surfacing in peg 6, which I why I wanted to fish there. In reality, as I only had my heavy barbel rods with me (2.2lb tc) I probably wouldnt have been able to reach the fish if they had shown anyway, the tip of the island was about the extent of my casting.

I think next time, I should take a walk around before I set up to try and find the fish, I suppose even though the lake is very heavily stocked it still takes finding the fish to catch them.
Im tempted to fish twynersh next time, a very nice setting of 8 lakes ranging from match and heavily stocked lakes to low stocked pits with 40lb+ fish in it.
I think that im a little apprehensive about fishing there, due to my previous sessions at thorpe lea, and the ease of fishing there, twynersh seems a lil more tricky. Plus its more expensive than thorpe lea, but then saying that twynersh is a much more pleasant surrounding.

Maybe ill take a wonder around there next week and get a feel for the place!

River Thames 15 sept 08

This weeks session was an evening one, both Dad and I were going to fish into dark

With the river still up, coloured, and pushing through, I decided to stick with my heavier set up as used last week.

I let Dad choose which swim he wanted first, as he still has to catch a barbel!!! He chose upstream of a large overhanging bush, so I settled in the swim below. The bush created a large slack area behind it, which I thought would be an ideal place to locate a river carp or barbel.

Rigs were exactly the same as last week, with 12lb hook lengths, and size 8 owner hooks, 3 oz leads held bottom with no problem at all in the slack margins about a rod length out. In fact, I had my lines slack from the rod tip to the 1 oz backlead. I was using the backlead so that I could keep the angle of line down, and keep the line behind the lead pinned to the bottom. This is another one of my thoughts for this year, and although in the coloured water it probably wouldn't make much difference i'm sure it will when the river clears up.

I checked the hook points while baiting up, as I had left the hooklengths attatched from last weeks session, they were fine, so on went 2 x 15 mm Spicy fresh prawn boilies on one rod, and 3 on the other.

One rod went straight out in front of me on the edge of the flow, followed by a handful of free samples slightly upstream. The second rod was positioned downstream about 20yrds, again followed by a handful of free samples.

As the sun went down, as is so usual on the Thames, the water came alive with fish surfacing all over. even out in the main flow! Most of them were behind the bush under my rod tips, probably feeding on the surface scum that had gathered. Every now and again there was a bigger swirl, which at first I thought were bigger fish feeding on the surface, but after a while I started to think that they were probably perch feeding on the smaller fish as there were some really big swirls and splashes.

After a while of this I decided to reel in the barbel rods and get the lure rod out of the car and see if I could catch one, if indeed they were perch.

whilst reeling in the downstream rod, it was now that I realised I had cast over a snag and then with the back lead pulled the line down into it!! so with not a lot of pull at all I tried to free the snagged rig and the line frayed above the rig, losing the whole lot in the process!! That will teach me, lesson learned.

The second rod also snagged slightly before coming free and bring with it a load of weed and cabbage roots.

So after around 20 minutes of casting small mepps spinners around the swim to no avail, I decided to put the barbel rods back out.

I re baited the rod which was still set up and put this straight out on the edge of the flow, followed by a handful of freebies. I then re rigged up the second rod, this time using a size 6 owner curved hook. This rod was placed upstream, away from the snag, again another handful of free bait went out over the rig.

A little while later I had a knock on the rod tip on the right hand rod, followed a minute or so later by another. Then nothing, thinking about what to do, do I reel in and rebait or leave it and wait??

About ten minutes later I decided to move the left hand rod closer in, after having recast it out into the main flow with 5 oz of lead. As I went to pick up the rod, the right hand rod shot off, grabbing it and striking I felt a weight the slack! Damn I had missed it, upon checking the rig I could clearly see why. When I had snagged the rig earlier, I had not checked the hook point, and it was as blunt as anything. In fact, whilst testing the hook, it would not even break the skin on my finger with alot of pressure. Lesson learned again!!! I cant believe that I had been so stupid to not check and replace the hook!! Still at least I know I will NEVER do it again.

In the mean time Dad had missed a whacking bite on garlic flavoured meat.

Nothing else happened during the session. Whilst I am enjoying getting out and fishing, I wish the flow would calm down to normal conditions so I can get fishing properly without needing 6 oz to hold bottom anywhere other than the margins!!

I have been given a tip about Rivermead Island in sunbury in my bid for a double figure barbel, however on my first drive past there were 4 bivvies pitched up along there, so maybe a little too busy for me. I might still give it a go though, one morning on an early session.

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River Thames 8th sept 08

Today was going to be a session with a difference, not only was I fishing a flooded river for the first time ever,
I was also fishing a stretch I have not barbel fished before.

I suppose starting on a new stretch of river is always going to be daunting, especially when its carrying extra water from all the recent rain, but its something I felt I needed to do. Alot of the spots I normally fish are very very popular, most of the time its hard enough to get a swim, day sessions, night sessions, weekend sessions, they are normally all full. Which means the fish are very much pressurised. This is confirmed by the fact that my catches have never really set the angling world alight!!!

Since starting my barbel campaign on the Thames 4 years ago, I have only caught a handful of them, with the biggest going 9.06.
Whilst this is a big fish for the river, I was still quite disappointed with my results, especially for the effort put in.
I put these results down to, not that there were no fish in my swim, as im sure there were fish present. But down to the fact that they are constantly pressured.

This in turn made me think about various aspects of my fishing -
Baits - was I using the best bait I could? was anyone else using the same bait as me?
Rigs - my standard rigs were 12lb mainling, 12lb hooklength, so was this a factor in not catching? I wasnt using backleads, was this an issue too?
Swim - too crowded? too much bait going into the swims? or possible no barbel present, as im sure they are not present in every swim!!!

Since considering the above aspects, I have paid alot more attention to my rigs, baits and where I fish this year.
I loaded my reels with 10lb mainline, instead of 12lb, I started making 8-10lb hooklengths, instead of 12-15lb. I have made aload of leadcore leaders for fishing close in so that I can pin the line down and not spook the fish.
I started thinking more about bait, instead of just using pellets and source boilies. I still use them but I have opened up and got a little more variety, fresh spicy prawn, meaty marine, tiger nut. As well as different pellets, not just halibuts.
Swim-wise I have been thinking about fishing different areas, areas that see minimal bankside disturbance. Areas that take alot of walking to. Google earth has been invaluable for searching out new water.
I have found many new spots to fish that, although they have probably been fished in past, have probably not seen anywhere near the amount of anglers that the more popular "park behind your swim" areas get.
I also wanted to get away from the deciding how and where to fish at home scenario, that I did so much. I think that to a certain degree, you need to plan for a session, but I think that its easy to over plan. Sometimes I was almost virtual fishing from home, that was the extent to which I was planning for my sessions.
So my new plan is to pick an area to fish and decide where and how to fish when I get there.

So my target for this season is to catch the same amount of barbel that I have caught in the past 4 years!! Not that hard in itself giving the amount of new water I have to go at, and of course, working shifts I can get to fish the more popular areas during the week when there are less anglers around.


So to the session itself -

It was a pretty lazy morning, and we decided to have lunch and sort Jake before leaving which mean't that we got to the river around 13:30ish
Wearrived at the chosen area, an area that I wanted to fish for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in the times that I have lure fished along here in the past I have not seen one single angler along the stretch. And secondly as the river was pushing through quite a bit, I thought that the large fallen tree would give some santuary to the fish from the flow, as it created a large slack area behind it.

I started by setting up 2 identical rigs, free running leads, on 12lb line (I was going to downgrade to 10lb, however with extra lead needed for the flow I decided to use the heavier tips and line) 12lb flouro ESP ghost hooklengths around 12inchs long to size 8 owner hooks. Hookbaits were glugged 20mm source boilies and glugged 21mm halibut pellets.

Now, reading about what my plan of action had been for this year, and then reading about how I set up for todays session might seem a bit hypocritical, I have just spent 5 minutes going on about how Im going to change my approach this year, and here I am using exactly the same rigs as last year.

But on the day, I felt heavier line would not make a difference due to the extra colour in the water. This was also the case with the baits, as I didnt introduce any free offerings due to the strength of the flow, I chose double 20mm boilies and double 21mm halibuts. Seeing as these were the only baits in the water I wanted the barbel to find them.

The heavier line was also needed as I placed a bait half way accross the river in the main flow, this required 6oz of lead to hold bottom. The other rig was placed upstream of my position right in front of the fallen tree, as close as I could get it.
There was a fair amount of colour in the river and it was probably 1ft up, however this gradually dropped through the session, by around 4 inches, judging by the water level on the tree to my left.

The session ended with a blank, I wasnt too concerned about this, after all its a new area, and the fish will take some finding.
I am going to target the area again, because it doesnt seem to get fished much, I introduced some pellets into the swim before I left, so provided the river doesnt rise again, im hoping the fish might get on the bait.

One strange thing that happened during the session, claire was casting a mepps spinner around and as I had moved the rod from the tree to the edge of the mainflow, she had a little area of slack water to cast around in. 3 or 4 casts later and she had managed to hook the half a tree that was sitting in the edge of our swim. After a bit of pulling the branch started moving, with that a fish (light coloured, carp or chub possibly??) came up tot he surface with it, it then shot off along the surface. It was a bizzarre scene and I have never seen a fish swim off like that before, it reminded me of spawning carp skimming accross the surface!!

So for next time -
Well Im not going to plan much about it, I have bait ready, I just need to hope the rain stays away and I can scale down and try my new tactics. Who knows I might actually catch some fish this year!!!

River Thames & River Ash 25 August 08

I started today buy taking claires stick to the River Ash in upper halliford whilst taking Callum and Jake to the park.

We had seen some small fish there a few days earlier, they looked like roach and bleak, however I did see a large chub of about 1lb, which for a river the size of the Ash is probably as big as the fish are gonna get, unless there is a pike or 2 in there!
When we arrived we ate lunch (Maccie D's, free glasses innit!!!) and there was a guy already fishing there, he was trotting maggots under a float about 8 inchs deep. Im not sure if it was the noise from Jake crying or that he had caught all the fish, but shortly afterwards he packed up and left!
So I set up the whip, my intention was to just freeline tiny bits of bread and just watch the bait for bites.
I had 3 mtrs of line attached to the whip, straight through to a size 18 hook.

It took a few trots through, but I soon managed to hook an immaculate chub of about 3oz, it really was in fin perfect condition, probably never having been caught before.

I was able to see the small fish attacking the BB sized bit of bread but they failed to hook themselves as they were that small!!
I had managed to get a couple of better bites which I missed, when a couple of girls came and started walking about in the river where I was fishing!! I suppose its to be expected in a park during the summer holidays, cant wait for them to all go back to school, lol

I packed up shortly after that, just as 2 young boys arrived to fish, again with maggots set about 6-8inchs under floats.
Maybe thats the going method. I didnt realise how many people fished the little river, but it will be worth another go I think with maggots and small float.

After this we decided to drive to chertsey and feed the ducks with callum, so I thought I would have a quick half hour lure fishing a few swims along there. As it turned out, when we arrived it was very busy, I suppose with it being Bank holiday Monday it was to be expected.

All the usual "Noddies" were out in force along the stretch, so we decided to go to a new bit of river which I had been eyeing up with the intention of barbel fishing it. However I only had lure rods today so I set up claires rod too and we wandered off to pastures new!

It is a stretch typical of the Thames, shallow close in, before shelving off to the deeper channel, then raising up again on the far bank. We walked probably 300yards in total. I managed a small pike of about 3lb on a spinner bait, the pike destroying the skirt on it in the process.
We walked towards the meads, however its the other way that im interested in for barbel fishing, not sure why really, im sure if the barbel are in that stretch they will be in the meads too.
I think I fancy the other bit as I have never fished that far around, whereas I have fished the meads for pike before.

Hopefully I will be out before the end of the week to try out a couple of spots I have ear marked.