Thames Champs

Fished the Thames Champs on Sunday, guesting for Matrix Talisman. Really liked the look of my draw, the first peg at Radcot, but I struggled to put any quality together and my 7lb was below halfway. This is a shallow swim with no depth under your feet and just 5-6ft at 13 metres, which is pretty much the only place I caught. I know it’s a great peg historically, so I’ve clearly not done it justice. Would love to fish it with a foot more water on and some flow. 

I had a lot of little dace and bleak and very few roach for long periods, catching best a few metres down my peg on casters and pinkies until the last 20 minutes when I typically couldn’t get the rig in quick enough, fishing bang over my groundbait. Strange match on a sunny day. I just couldn’t get the fish revved up and every time I topped up it killed it. Needed somewhere else to go but the depth and weed really limited my options. 

However, I must say Radcot’s a really great section of river that fished terrific on the day. I drew the scales and witnessed lots of big quality roach and perch further downstream, the best was a 3lb 3oz stripey and there were lots of 1lb+ fish and an odd chub.

Well done Paul Glenfield winning the section and 2nd individually with 16lb of roach and perch on the pole, Oxford did well to win with a solid performance and Mike Berntsen won individually with 20lb at Grafton, which included three good chub and 8lb of silvers. Great fishing.