Tough End to a Brilliant Season.

 The last three days of the season have now been fished and although there are just a few hours I'm done, a well earned rest for the river's will hopefully be observed by everyone (especially our cousins from foreign shores!), I'm already stocking up on endless kilo's of groundbait with a monster Bream assault planned for the spring but this time will be shared with a few trips for Rudd & Crucian Carp.

 Not getting ahead of myself though here's what happened between Thursday and Today:

 Thursday's fishing was solely for Roach and I had all the typical bait to get them feeding and keep them there, to cut a very long but boring story short the magnificent silver flanked redfin's totally ignored me all day, I had a feeling the condition's were all wrong and the river was too clear and from experience I know that is blanking territory, nevertheless I had made the effort to travel so I stuck to my guns and had 9 Chub to 3.5 to show for my efforts, not what I wanted but it saved a total blank.

 But I did witness something of a rarity in the form of a bat hunting in the daylight! the photo's came out brilliantly aswell.

Unbelievable, still can't believe I witnessed a bat hunting in the daylight.

 Friday Brian and myself made the journey to the worst place on earth ( I'm an Arsenal fan gives you a clue ), Walthamstow Reservior's is an enormous complex of water which is home to large heads of Carp but this wasn't the reason for our trip, it was for the less known stock of Pike, the Esox here do get large but the water to cover can be daunting even for the hardiest of angler's and with no boat's allowed everything is bank fishing. Upon arrival we both walked through the gate and what we know to be a Grouse was just standing there staring at us before she flew up and over the main road, I thought these only lived in Scotland yet we saw one clear as day in North London, I was very surprised to say the least.

 We both spent hours walking around the complex looking for fish and we were successful in finding some to 17-18lbs but these weren't on the feed, why?, well we was about to find out this as Brian latched into a lovely 11.12 Pike which was showing signs of spawning and a male following it in clarified this, the take, clean as you like and the fight as good, unfortunately for myself I blanked and it was a hard blank too, miles upon miles of walking different tactic's used I fished hard, just wasn't my day, maybe Saturday the Roach will play?.

 On to today and were the Roach playing?, I had a thought about heading down to Britford but I feared that it would be a circus and I refuse to queue behind someone to fish a swim or not have the ability to move swim if one drops dead, so having weighed up the pro's and con's it was decided against, so I hoped that my decision wouldn't go against me, I left late by my standard's and was fishing by around 10am, very late actually but last day of a very successful and enjoyable season there was no pressure for me to do anything but wanted to sign off the season with a nice Roach or just find some, times recently have been tough and I have had my fair share of blanks fishing for them.

Biggest of the day, not bad eh!

 It didn't take long to land one of roughly 6oz but the Gudgeon were feeding much better than the Roach as I spent around 4 hours trotting through a perfect gravel run where I know a shoal live and I was rewarded for my persistence as I slipped a mint conditioned Rutilus over the net and on the scales read 1.9 which was very pleasing, a further eight Roach were caught but none over 10oz and a healthy batch of Gudgeon to 2oz 6dr were also caught. I did leave that swim and headed down but after spending twenty in another pool I felt no urge to carry on and my day and in fact my season was complete, no 3lb Roach but it has been a brilliant season for me and a compilation of this season's best catches will go up over the coming days. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.

A plump winter chalk stream 1lb 9oz Roach. Pukka.

Sunset on a fine season, will next season be better, let's see.