River Colne Middlesex

[CWK]

Stuart , I wish I had a pound for every time I witnessed an angler deposit the entire contents of their bait bucket ( corn , hemp , pellets and crushed boiles etc) into the Colne when their intention was to fish for literally a few hours only to berate me for a perceived lack of Barbel and chub !!! My reply was , as you can imagine , a rather sarcastic one . Now I wasn't the worlds greatest barbel angler by a long chalk but I seldom failed to catch using appropriate techniques ..... I've found it's best to employ that 6 inches or so between ones ears before one starts to fish on any venue !!!

[Stuart Whiting]

Stuart , I wish I had a pound for every time I witnessed an angler deposit the entire contents of their bait bucket ( corn , hemp , pellets and crushed boiles etc) into the Colne when their intention was to fish for literally a few hours only to berate me for a perceived lack of Barbel and chub !!! My reply was , as you can imagine , a rather sarcastic one . Now I wasn't the worlds greatest barbel angler by a long chalk but I seldom failed to catch using appropriate techniques ..... I've found it's best to employ that 6 inches or so between ones ears before one starts to fish on any venue !!!

Yea mate, I can understand and go along with that, the approach that I used to adopted was perhaps use a couple of swan shot on me main line , single hook bait dropped into every little nook and cranny but obviously not right into snags sit and wait for 20 mins and if nothing then move on to another swim and repeat the same and so on, used to take a lot of barbel like this from the Kennet, the lead is so light and some times I actually free line that they don't half get as spooked as aposed to using std heavy carpy type leads that crash on there heads .....lols

Surprised to see that a lot of anglers only realy consider about using bread in realy cold weather and water temps for chub, in the right conditions when it's mild and with a nice bit of colour I ve used big chunks of bread popped up 3-4 inches off the bottom and his how I've had most of my barbel, yes admitinly you'll get chub but a few years back have had several barbel in a day roving with bread on the Kennet when others have sat in one single swimm all day long pilling in modern baits and failed miserably

Hope you do well mate on the rivers before the season ends,
I'm off up to Hampton court on the Thames weekend trotting for some of the quality roach that used to be there, just hope I can still find em

All the best

Stuart

[CWK]

Quite agree that bread in all its forms is a much underrated and underused bait today . A chunk of crust from a fresh uncut loaf will often illicit a bite when nothing else does . Most fish seem to recognise bread as a tasty food source and respond accordingly ..

I think I know the stretch of Thames you'll be fishing this weekend . Had some good sport there when in my youth !! Tight lines and good luck...

Colin

[Stuart Whiting]

Quite agree that bread in all its forms is a much underrated and underused bait today . A chunk of crust from a fresh uncut loaf will often illicit a bite when nothing else does . Most fish seem to recognise bread as a tasty food source and respond accordingly ..

I think I know the stretch of Thames you'll be fishing this weekend . Had some good sport there when in my youth !! Tight lines and good luck...

Colin

Hi Colin,

Yea mate, it's basically directly at the back of the palace on the palace bank, an area where there's a shelf a couple of rod lengths out and the swims are deeper along this particular section than the rest of the bank for a considerable distance and at times holds some very good roach,

A few years ago a friend of mine who is still currently sponsored by Davis tackle of Staines fished there with hemp n Tare for a roach bag of 55lb and that was just 49 fish, every fish was over 1lb and two or three 2lber's

All the best

Stuart

[CWK]

WOW !!!! now a bag of beautiful redfins like that really floats my boat... Had heard from Tony in Davis Angling that the Thames was producing some nice roach again but your friends red letter catch was really something .....

They say never go back but I'm sorely tempted !!!

Best Colin

[Stuart Whiting]

WOW !!!! now a bag of beautiful redfins like that really floats my boat... Had heard from Tony in Davis Angling that the Thames was producing some nice roach again but your friends red letter catch was really something .....

They say never go back but I'm sorely tempted !!!

Best Colin

Oh I would Colin, definitely mate, I think it's a case of if you can locate em then it's quite possible to bag up

My freind is Euan, many years ago he used to work in the shop, he's a very competitive match angler and is still sponsored by them, I'm meeting up with him at the big one show next month as he doesn't live in Staines anymore and is up in Nottingham, we've also got it planned to fish the start of the new season together perhaps during the day at Hampton court or should I say around that sought of area and then move on upto laleham for the night to target the big bream shouls on the feeder as this is what me mate specialises in

It wouldn't be unheard of to get in the region of 150-200lb bag of bream bream baring in mind that a lot of the fish are between 5-9 lb

All the best

Stuart

[Olly]

The same section backing onto the Palace but a bit farther downstream provided a colleague with a rod won from the Press for a bag of barbel & bream. Late 60's I think.

Seems good swims/areas always stay good!

[Stuart Whiting]

The same section backing onto the Palace but a bit farther downstream provided a colleague with a rod won from the Press for a bag of barbel & bream. Late 60's I think.

Seems good swims/areas always stay good!

Yea mate, that's what I'm lead to believe, good swims and areas normally remain the same, I rekon that there's only really a couple of reasons why an area could ever possibly change, A ) predation, B ) heavily silted gravel runs ( talking in terms of river roach and dace )

Sounds like your colleague was down towards barge walk, Raivens Ait, has always been a good area for barbel & bream, have found it used to fish better at night

Best fishes

Stuart

[Olly]

Not that far down - past the mouth of the Mole and before Thames Ditton Island. He still lives in Teddington.

[Stuart Whiting]

Not that far down - past the mouth of the Mole and before Thames Ditton Island. He still lives in Teddington.

Yep know it very well , fished virtually every swim along that stretch when I used to rove along their for the large perch, never did hit the 4lb mark but had a number of good 3lber's

Used to take em on popped up air infected lobs or float ledger paternoster bleak live baits the days when I used me original Shakespeare wand and one of me 1952 Mitchell 300 reels

Best fishes

Stuart