The river was slightly up on normal and had a brown cloudy colour.
I set up a waggler on a peg between the Crendon Road Bridge and the By-pass bridge. Fishing slightly under depth with maggot as bait and a regular feed of loose maggots I started to catch a number of small roach and bleak. After about 40 minutes the float went under and I felt a strong pull on the rod.
The fish made straight for the bank to try and bury itself in the weed. I applied side strain and held it for a few seconds before the line suddenly snapped. A short expletive left my lips! I realised I needed a stronger hooklink and so I re-rigged the line. Fifteen minutes later it happened again. This time I applied enough strain to get the fish out into the middle of the river. The line held and I was able to pull in a fine 4lb chub. Thereafter the swim went quiet so I moved to a peg closer the bridge. Using a feeder rod and a lugworm and a regular handful of maggots I was soon into another chub of 3lb. A good day !!
Four days later I was further down the river just behind Robin Gibb’s house. The river level was up and flowing smoothly. Using the same tactics with the float I was soon catching a regular number of roach, bleak, small chub and dace. This continued for about an hour and a half before the swim went quiet. This is not unusual on the river as small fish activity can sometimes attract a pike into the swim. Nevertheless, I persevered and was rewarded with a nice dace of about 4 to 5 ozs and a roach of about 10oz. Again another good day on the river Thame !
Barry Mullen, December 2015
