{"id":8662,"date":"2026-07-24T12:29:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/?p=8662"},"modified":"2026-07-24T12:29:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:29:31","slug":"lots-to-learn-on-the-upper-thames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/?p=8662","title":{"rendered":"Lots To Learn On The Upper Thames"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just been on the three-day Upper Thames Festival sponsored by Cadence. I\u2019ve only fished a couple of bits of the Upper Thames and never in the summer, but I know it\u2019s a very different river to the middle sections I like. It\u2019s teeming with tiny fish plus some big ones, mostly very big chub, but strangely not a lot of the mid-sized bread-and-butter fish we all like catching. I don\u2019t feel I\u2019ve ever got to grips with the Upper Thames and knew it\u2019d be a challenge to sort out, but I was keen to learn and hopefully get a better understanding of what\u2019s required to crack this challenging river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day One I was at Clanfield and I\u2019ve never seen so many minnows in all my life! Chuck a whole worm in they\u2019d keep it in the top two feet of water for ages, playfully bouncing it around as if it was a balloon!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve weighed 6lb 8oz for 4th in the 14-peg zone, but also 4th in the 7-man points zone, so not an ideal start. I\u2019ve basically had a big old 4lb+ warrior chub and a few bits for that. The chub put up a hell of a scrap on strong tackle and I\u2019ve had to drag it out of a bush on the inside. I popped even stronger elastic on after that, then promptly hooked an even bigger one! It\u2019s once again gone straight for the bush. I\u2019ve heaved and pulled, with my XTR700 bent double, but it\u2019s eventually shed the hook. Gutted! The last 90 minutes I\u2019ve sat it out for another without a sign. There are some monstrous fish at Clanfield and I would love to have seen the one I lost!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Two I\u2019ve drawn a section called Rushey. Never seen it before but it looked lovely, albeit tap-water clear and full of weed along most of the length. I\u2019ve drawn a swim they call the armchair peg as it\u2019s so comfortable to fish and sat under the welcoming shade of some trees. Apparently a great peg when it\u2019s got some colour, but up against the noted weirpool swims to my left. I could see the bottom at least halfway across, but it was lovely and flat and no weed other than wispy stuff on the bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tackling up I spotted a really big chub basking a couple of metres shy of the far bank. I could reach the far-bank canopy with a full 16 metres including my XTR Flat Mini Extension and made my mind up to gear up and fish there most of the match. A couple of perch immediately got my hopes up\u2026 then the nano chub horde arrived!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were like micro piranhas and even double dendra was no good. My worms were longer than the actual fish, yet I\u2019d still keep hooking them. I\u2019ve piled in bait, worms, casters, hemp, even cracking open two tins of meat, and it\u2019s not made a dent. I was sure I\u2019d eventually get at least one quality fish, but it was a total waste of time. The longer I\u2019ve wasted for a big fish the more I felt I had to gamble and commit to it. I\u2019ve had a few little dace and tiny chub when I dropped short and my 13m hemp swim has just produced more micro chub. I should have just fished short most of the day and loose fed something like hemp, pellets and corn across and maybe I\u2019d have seen one of those elusive big fish?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I weighed just 2lb 1oz, beating just one in the section. To rub salt into the wounds, Kelvin Tallett drew the peg the next day and had a big chub off it! A frustrating day when I know I got my tactics totally wrong. At least I have a better idea of what to expect if I draw up there again\u2026 Still scratching my head though\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Three I was at Grafton, which is above Radcot, and another section I\u2019ve never seen . Up to now I\u2019d had the luxury of parking behind my peg, but you definitely need a barrow for this zone, with some mega walks in the blazing sunshine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was told there was a chance of a chub, but all I saw on chopped worm and a chopped worm feeder were more of those pesky micro chub and a couple of early perch. I\u2019ve basically just caught roach on hemp at 10 metres for my 6lb 5oz catch. I think hemp is the only thing the micro fish can’t easily eat. That was enough for a section prize as Ian Young won the entire match with 10lb 14oz of hemp roach from peg 1 in my zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highlight was watching the kids hilariously canoeing straight into my far-bank bushes multiple times and their very patient instructor telling me, “It was like herding cats!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a reasonable end to a tricky three days. It\u2019s been a steep learning curve and I\u2019ve definitely not got the experience on the upper river that\u2019s required just yet. So many thoughts and ideas whirring around in my head as to how I should have fished each peg in hindsight. There\u2019s clearly no shortage of fish, which is great to see. The key is trying to catch the bigger ones or going for 500+ smaller ones. I’m clearly no good at either yet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must say it was an excellently organised event and the barbecue afterwards was really appreciated by everyone. Thanks to Cadence for sponsoring it. A big well done to Dawid Zukowski winning with a perfect 3-point score, plus Gary Etheridge 2nd on 4 points and last year’s champion Chris Webb 3rd with 5 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just been on the three-day Upper Thames Festival sponsored by Cadence. I\u2019ve only fished a couple of bits of the Upper Thames and never in the summer, but I know it\u2019s a very different...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-river","category-river-thames"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8669,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8662\/revisions\/8669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}