Then he can phone me up and tell me what I should have done to catch fish.
As there was going to be a meeting of the Marford Bailiffs at 10.00am and as our newest Bailiff Terry Lathwell was due to meet the chaps, Tel and I decided to have a day at Marford instead of going to The Kennet.
I opted to get there early as we have had some reports of members getting on to the fishery before time, I arrived at 6.00am and sat in the car by the gate, Terry arrived at 6.20am and after a quick chat while we waited for the rain to ease, we headed on to the fishery at about 6.45am.
There was not another soul in sight so we had choice of swims, Terry went for Peg 9 and I opted for Peg 10, once my box was in place and the brolly was up I had a small degree of comfort, the wind was coming from behind me and with a cup of tea in my hand I could sit and watch the river come to life in dawns early light.
The only problem was that the river did not come to life, a medium sized Chub thrashed out of the water and even the Ducks looked a bit cheesed off, the rain had returned with a vengeance and the low clouds seemed if anything to be scudding across the sky a bit faster than they were before dawn, I was beginning to wonder why I had left a nice warm bed for this piscatorial paradise.
Although dawn had come and gone there was still not enough light to sort out my tackle so I ended up using my head torch to get my gear ready.
As always at Marford I had gone armed for Roach so the first rod I set up was my trust old 12ft Drennan Crystallite float rod, with this went my light weight centre pin loaded with 50 yds of 2.5lb Drennan float fish line, having looked at the river I decided upon a John Allerton stick float (I have two sets that John gave me after a match on the Trent) the float has a pole bristle glued into the tip as a sight marker, the float would take 6 x No4 but I shot it with No6 shot shirt button style with a No8 and a No10 closest to the hook, the hook length was to be Preston Reflo Powerline 0.7mm at 1lb breaking strain to a size 16 Caster hook.
I plumed the swim using a Swan shot and once I had marked the depth on my rod I made the final adjustments to ensure that as the float swam evenly down the swim, the only part visible would be the sight bristle.
Bait waiter in place and Casters ready I poured another cup of tea and made my first cast.
I always have about ten trots through before I put any bait in, sometimes (not often) but on occasion the swim will be full of fish already feeding, so I like to see what is about before I start to feed, the fact that I had NOT seen any prime 2lbers finning on the surface at dawn meant that I would probably have work the swim up a bit, even so one lives in hope.
After ten bite less trots through I started to loose feed with 6 Casters every trot, half an hour of this had still not produced a bite so I changed to 3 Casters twice a trot along with 4-5 grains of Hemp, ten minuets of this and the float buried at the far end of the swim, I struck to feel the jagged thump of a nice 10oz Roach.
So success at last and with my target species, I took the Roach up to the next swim to release it and then proceeded to take another four fish over the next hour, all from way downstream and all like peas in a pod, the last fish was taken while the rain was at its hardest so instead of taking it to the next swim to release, I put it back in my own swim, after all, the bites I was getting were all a long way down stream, it could not hurt putting a fish back in my own swim could it ..WRONG!!!!!!!!!
It was another hour before I had another sniff of a bite and that was a touchy affair which I missed.
This post has now been given over to rant time!!!!!
Why the Bl..dy hell cant we use keepnets at Marford, I can understand the need to NOT put Barbel and Carp in nets but the simple use of a keep net would make the Roach fishers life so much easier, every time you put a decent Roach back in your own swim it takes the shoal with it, the correct use of the right kind of net will do no harm what so ever and would give those of us that do fish for Roach and Dace an even chance to get at some of the better fish at Marford!!!
Rant over.
This was obviously getting to be a real hard day, no matter what I tried; coming up in the water, fishing over depth, bulking shot, over shotting, nothing seemed to make any difference, all I could catch were Roach from about 8-10oz, with bites coming every twenty mins or so, all the bites were from well down the swim, none of the bites were coming from the area I expected to catch from, this was turning into a grueler!!
At mid morning it was time for the bailiffs meeting so off went a bite less Tel while I sat and had another cup of tea and pondered my lack of ability to get these Roach going.
It seemed like the pattern of the day was not to change, another angler turned up and had a 2lb Chub first cast, and then he struggled to get the odd bite thereafter, we just had to face facts, it was going to be a poor day.
In fact the only highlight was in trying to get a decent photo of the rare Water Rail that lives in the reeds at Marford.
I know it's not a good shot but we are lucky to have one on our water, follow the link to learn more about these timid birds.
http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob4070.htm
As with all things in life if you want a change you have to change something, well I made change after change but the sport simply would not improve but then at 1.00pm something started to change that was to improve our sport considerably.
It had rained long and hard all morning so it should not have been a surprise when some of this water found its way into the river, at first it was a slight change in colour but then the level started to creep up and the colour got a bit deeper, I was about to ring Tel and ask if he had noticed the change when my phone rang, Tel wanted me to go down to peg 8 and take a photo of a Barbel on his new camera, the sneaky sod had moved swim without telling me!!
When I got back to my swim the colour was starting to look good so I set up my 13ft Shimano Diafalsh with a heavier centre pin holding 4.6lb line, the float was a 4BB Topper with bulked shot and a eyed size 16 hook to 3.6lb Reflo Powerline hooklength.
I still wanted to catch Roach so I resumed fishing with the original light outfit and straight away I was into slightly bigger Roach of the 10 12oz mark, but still hard to catch and still at the bottom of the swim, a change of hook bait to double red maggot resulted in my first bite from what should have been my main catch zone my first Dace of the day and a good one at about 12oz which was followed by another and another and than I had one worth weighing which went 15oz!!
My camera had done its battery and Tel was nowhere to be seen so back it went to gain another 6oz before I catch it again.
Dace like that are worth going for so I started to feed a few maggots with the Caster and I was rewarded with 3 Chub on the bounce from about a pound up to about 2lb 4oz, I was just thinking I might be wise to move my hook link up to 1lb-12oz when the float buried solidly and the Barbel made for Hatfield, 1lb Reflo can take a bit of abuse but Mrs Barbel was on a mission so after about 45seconds she was free and I was cursing.
Once the Barbel are in the swim you may as well have a go at them so a quick change to the heavier gear, strap myself to my box and add a few more maggots to the feed within 10 mins I was into a runaway train, this time I was armed for Bear and after a powerful fight I landed a fin perfect 7lb Barbel, this was followed by several more Chub and another 4lb Barbel as the light failed.
So all in all not a great day but then again from phone calls I received during the day The Thames was fishing like a drain and so was The Kennet with no bites reported from either, I had at least seen my float go under and had my string pulled.
To cap it all while I was packing up and getting soaked to the skin a kind soul phoned me to tell me that my team Arsenal were a goal down to Chelski at half time and we were playing crap.