Down south for a few days and first time out in a while- booked in for club match on the Colne at Uxbridge- had been going to be on the old free stretch but demolition works meant the car park would be closed so moved (thankfully given how the lower bit fishes with extra water on) to the Island stretch.
River well up, coloured and hammering through which together with this mornings heavy frost put a few regulars off so only 12 or 13 of us. Split between backstream and main river, as always virtually two different matches, bits on the former, sit it out for lumps on the latter. Good chance of lumps today with the height, pace and colour and roach and dace weights likely to be down for the same reasons.
Drew 52, one of the favourite backstream swims so happy with that. Got there to find a slack behind the pennywort across but the rest running too fast for comfort and the crease such as it was boiling up quite a bit. Looking down the peg, slack bit not in shot
About 2 ft 6 in the slack, about the same or a bit deeper down the swim and a deeper run straight in front about halfway across shallowing up a few yards down. Set up 5 no 4 stick, straight bomb and two pole rigs, light for across and a 4gm lollipop to hold in the deeper run. Started on stick with maggot, two dace first two runs down the crease but then nothing for fifteen minutes. Over into slack with pole, a couple of small roach and perch straight away then gone. Poked pole to bottom end of slack , two more roach, gone again. Picked up stick , ran it through down the swim, nothing, likewise with lollipop in front so becoming clear they didn't seem to want to be in the flow, Back on pole in slack and down crease and a few more fish but they just wouldn't settle anywhere, probably down to the variable flow and didn't seem to be reacting to the feed at all, just random bites here and there. Still, 12 fish in first hour, kept chopping and changing between methods and 21 after two but getting harder all the time. Sun now right in eyes so time for the bomb, couple of fish on it but missed more than I hit so back onto pole. Middle of match just picking off odd fish but still putting weight in the net and couldn't get more than three anywhere before had to change lines. Fifth hour a struggle but finally had a few fish, all dace , right down the swim but bumped one and they disappeared. Last hour as expected improved a bit as the light dropped but knew I hadn't done enough as Hon Sec who was on a sit it out swim had a 9 lb barbel to go with an earlier chub.
Ended up with 46 fish, reckoned had about 5 lb so thought it was going to be tight between me and Brian on the next peg above me when he weighed 5-3. I was always a rotten estimator, 6-15
which was enough to get me second after Don's 13-12, Brian's 5-3 was third followed by a few 4s, better overall than we expected at the draw.
Odd day really, had to work hard to keep putting fish in the net but hard to see anything that made a difference other than to keep changing lines, one of those strange days when couldn't work out what if any effect the feeding was having. Still, very enjoyable...
