Another blast from the past

Charity by the Thames

I fished a private weir pool on the Thames yesterday, (16/10/2012) by kind invitation and in the company of Nigel Connor. I should clarify now that, and say it was a Cakey charity day auction lot that I won on Fishing Magic forum some two years ago.

Our home, being what seems to be as far away from everywhere, the drive took me what the usual close on three and a half hours. Setting off just before 8 am gave me time to arrive at our meeting place adjacent to the Thames at noon; in fact I arrived at 11:15.

We had been made aware that the fire brigade were due to carry out an exercise in the weir pool in the afternoon, but decided beforehand to go ahead with the day anyway and fished a couple of swims downstream under the willows. The water was up and coloured, they must have had a bit of rain further upstream.

All in all a rather unproductive early afternoon, but switching from pellet to an apple corer cut, core of garlic spam on a size 8 bought me a sharp bite, which I missed and assumed it was perhaps a chub. 

Half the core was still on the hook so I immediately put it back on the same spot, a sudden take and what felt like quite good fish in the current, turned out to be, to me, a sizeable eel. 

Having no idea of the scale of length to weight of eels, after removing my barbless hook with some ease, I put it in a plastic bag.... with some difficulty, and weighed it just out of interest, it came in at 2lb12ozs.
Pauline asked me later, when I reported in, if I was bringing it home for the pot, my response was in the negative, but I did think about it for a short while, before the thought of rarity and having no smoker at home, jellied and stewed eels are not to my taste, won me over. So I watched it sliver off down the bank at some speed, kick and swim off strongly.

The fire brigade moved off just after 4pm so we decided to move up into the weir pool, in the meantime I brewed a fresh cuppa Rosie Lee for us both from my Kelly kettle. I had forgotten the strainer, so the just in case standby bags of Assam were used.

By the way if anybody wants to buy Nigel a present for Christmas, he’s putting the Kelly on his list
I had already booked an overnighter in the High Wycombe Travelodge, which as it turned out proved to be a good investment of £50. We fished until late; I don't think I would have enjoyed the journey home after a tiring day of fishing.

Anyway, duly ensconced in the weir pool I decided to fish two rods for a while.
By the way, I took my two Young's John Wilson barbel travel rods, it didn't appeal to me to have my other rods on show overnight in a public car park at High Wycombe! 

One rod down the inside with my Purist II, and the other with my 5010 out into the swirling maelstrom of the pool.
The inside line remained motionless, other than the constant tug of leaf debris. On the other rod, I decided to try out a new pellet to me, but a batch that had been in my garage for quite a while, Teme Severn Lamprey, rather than their usual for me, halips.

I had been expecting if I hooked into any a big fish, I understood from Nigel that smaller barbel were in short supply, but my fish at just before 6 o'clock surprised him, it came in at "only" 5lb 6ozs! 

These early mornings are doing my bags in!

I gave it a fair bit of wellie as Nigel had warned of a river bottom covered with zebra mussel, and was therefore surprised to see a barbel rather than what I thought by it’s fight was a chub.

Those travel rods do have some ooomph. 

In fact as far as I can recall this was my first barbel of the season, having not been in the right frame of mind to fish the rivers more than just a couple of times, but sticking to my pond “in the valley”.

Jeff Woodhouse turned up just after this for a fish, but mostly a chat, and he was standing with me when within the half an hour, the next big twitch occurred and I had my second. Again a "small" fish at about 7lb 6ozs. 

Just before darkness set in we had a break for a chilli, pre-cooked and reheated by mine host, along with a cold bottle of Adnams finest, Ghost Ship.

All very nice too, and a welcome change from my usual sandwich.

I did intend to make another pot of tea, but got so intent in adding to my haul that I forgot, sorry Nigel. 

Unfortunately, no more fish were caught by Nigel, Jeff or me, but I did learn that many a blank takes place on this stretch, so was quite chuffed to actually catch in forum company, a rare occurrence for me.
So saying our goodbyes it was off to Wycombe for a nights rest, and a surprisingly good sleep. This was even followed by something quite close to a good breakfast.

Then the drive home, arriving at about 11:30 to help Pauline shift our just delivered wine order from Laithwaites into a "safe" location, in the hope it lasts until Christmas...I very much doubt it will though. Then down the White Hart for a lunchtime, along the line four pinta followed by an afternoon kip!

Thanks very much to Nigel, I hope I get the opportunity to fish the stretch again, it was well worth the two year wait.