Thames Festival Runner Up Again!
River Thames Festival runner up! Over the moon to have a great three days fishing in this event. I couldn’t fish it last year because of date clashes, so this year I put the festival first on my list, which meant not doing events like the UK Champs. Turned out to be a good decision!
Day 1 was a random draw and I found myself in a proper section of death at Culham. Always fancy anywhere from the reedbeds up and got the longest walk B20, so absolutely no complaints!
Always a chance of bream here, especially first day, but it’s a big gamble to sit for them for too long, so after a roach, two bottle tops and a perch on the tip I spent most the match on the pole at 13m. Caught on maggots and casters over Sonubaits Black Roach, Deep Water, Lake and Terre d’Arthur. Mostly little silver bream, but an occasional decent roach and three little chublets. Last 45 minutes were poor, which coincided with the rowers charging up and down. My 10lb 1oz won my 10 pegs, so a great start.
The bream never fed at all at Culham. They’d ALL swam a bit further upstream to the Upper Moors zone as Tom Hobbs paralysed the match and set a new Thames record with 297lb of them. Yes you read that correct. About 60 bream. Amazing!
Next day that’s the zone I was headed to, but I drew well away from any bream potential on peg 3. Not the best of pegs really as it’s set back, no flow and relatively shallow.
I fished the same as before polewise but started on a chopped worm feeder right across, missed a bite, then struck at a good bite and was snagged up solid, losing the lot. A quick go 3/4 for a bream yielded a monster crayfish and no other bites.
Felt we weren’t going to see any bonus fish, so fished the pole for the rest of the day. The fish were tiny and the only thing I could catch on were pinkies, but I caught a little roach pretty quickly all match. Only time I stopped catching was when a rower went by, turned around and sat in front of me for five minutes. Still can’t believe how one boat can put the fish off, but it was clear as day. All I had in that time was two gudgeon and a micro perch. It took five minutes after the boat shifted to start catching those little roach again.
I’ve ended up with a hard-earned 6lb 10oz of tinies for 3rd in the 10 pegs. Don’t feel I could have done much more as it never felt there were any stamp roach in my peg.
Unbelievably, just two bream got caught in the zone! This time it was Abingdon that stole all the headlines with over 600lb of bream and four anglers with over a ton of them apiece! What’s going on with this river?!
So, I was off to Abingdon for Day 3 and we all had bream in mind. I was a bit dissappointed to pull out A15, as it’s sat high up on the bank between two rowing clubs with the wind hacking into our faces. Just 5lb came off it the previous day and the big bream shoal was to our right. But Abingdon is never predictable, fish can swim and I still went for a positive attack.
Despite having three hours to set up I decided to assemble just two identical feeder rods and two pole rigs; a bream rig and a heavy roach/light bream rig. Anyone who knows me would be very surprised to see so little gear set up! To force myself to stop putting up rigs for the sake of it I spent the next 45 minutes therapeutically picking out the blackfly and skins from my home-turned casters.
Just before the start David Mils popped along to see me and handed me two good-luck Freddos. Thanks mate!
Fed just two swims: feeder 2/3 across and a 14.5m pole swim. A bit further than I’d like in stormy conditions, but I had bream in mind. My usual breamy fishmeal mix across (Sonubaits Method & Paste Green and Sweet Skimmer) and a sweet mix on the pole (Sweet Skimmer and Lake). Kicked off on the tip for just one chublet and a daddy ruffe in 30 minutes. On to the pole and eventually caught a chunky roach.
Ended up having a great day on the pole catching quality roach on maggots with an occasional fruitless look on the feeder whenever the wind got too bad. The gusts of wind were horrific at times and not sure how my pole’s still in one piece! Even had my hat blown off!
Wasn’t the quietest of days with all the sawing, banging and nail gunning going on opposite, plus the old boy mowing his lawn then flinging his dog’s crap into the river! Oh and the right-hand boat club were doing capsizing drills for two hours which totally wiped out three pegs to my right. Then the left-hand boat club descended onto the river en masse with 45 minutes to go with the noisy ‘pink plonkers’ charging up and down! Suffice to say my quality roach once again totally stopped feeding until the last two drops when I managed two more fish. You’d think the fish would be used to the commotion, so it amazes me just how detrimental the rowers were to everyone’s catch rate.
Anyway, I tried to put the blinkers on and the actual fishing was brilliant. I’ve ended up with 16lb 8oz of mostly big roach to win the 20-peg zone and the entire match. Only two bream were caught in our zone, yet there was 600lb of them yesterday!?
Still a great end to a truly great festival. Well done to river ace Steve Harwood; a deserving champion with three straight section wins. I’ve ended up runner up again with 5pts and Robert Blackburn was 3rd with 6pts. A special mention to Tom Hobbs who was 4th. Thank god this event was not decided on weight!
The organisation was impeccable, so a huge well done to Darren Rogers and his team of helpers, stewards and weighers in. The new HQ was impressive, perfect for a big event like this with decent food laid on afterwards. Must also say a big thanks to Robin Morley and Daiwa for extremely generous sponsorship with tackle vouchers for zone winners each day and the overall framers. All in all a brilliant festival!
Next up, Round 5 of the Matrix Commercial Champs, then the Riverfest Final!
