Back On The Thames

Fished the Pete Jackson Memorial on the Thames at Clifton on Sunday, expertly ran by Tony Gee. A lovely looking venue I’d not seen before and parking behind every peg was a bonus.

Talk before the draw was to draw the high-numbered deeps, but I’ve ended up on a very shallow and weedy swim up the top end. Cabbages and lillies a long way out on both banks limited my options somewhat. With the massive explosion of tiny fish at the moment I opted to cut out the groundbait and just feed hemp, casters and wheat at 13m where I’d got 5ft, plus a short chopped worm swim amongst the cabbages at 5m where it was less than 4ft.

Missed at least six bites short on worm before catching one of the culprits, which was a 1/4oz chublet! The peg was alive with them! Eventually had a few tiny perch here too, but wasn’t going anywhere. Out to 13m and it was top to bottom with micro chub. I cut out the casters and just fed heavily with hemp and wheat. Another hour of nano chub on the seed saw me crack open a large tin of sweetcorn and loose feed a whole tin of that as well. That brought a slightly better stamp of chublet, although still nothing larger than 2oz.

The only big perch I saw was a 12ozer that followed one of my nano chub back! Throughout the match the lilies erupted with fish eating all the fry and minnows. Everywhere I’ve been recently there’s so much natural food for our target fish to gorge on. Hopefully bodes well in a few years…

I was convinced that I’d see a roach or two on the hemp, but I never saw a single one. A tough day’s fishing in the end, weighing in just over 5lb. No shortage of bites, but nothing of any size. It was lovely being sat beside the river though, apart from the four brain-dead paddle boarders… Also amazing to hear all the red kites constantly screeching to each other as they were all nested up in the tall trees in front of me. Little bit worried when the cows and bull came for a mid-match drink, but thankfully no drama.

A big well done to Thames ace Paul Glenfield winning with 10lb 10oz, which included a lot of bleak on the whip. I strangely never saw a single bleak either. Interestingly there were a few baby barbel caught on the day, but the roach were largely absent and the bream never showed in the deeps. A tough day’s fishing in the hot, bright conditions, but still great to be on the riverbank. Even more importantly, £400 was raised for Cancer Research. Well done to everyone involved!