Sunday 3 November 2002

River Thames at Mapledurham. Reading & District AA water. November 3rd, 2002.

Hawthorne AC club match.


I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to this as the weather of the proceeding week had promised to turn the river into a chocolate conveyer belt, so I was well pleased on arrival to see the river in good shape with just a hint of colour. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a breathe of wind. Arriving at my peg I was delighted to see a nice crease at a comfortable trotting distance, so out came the MAP18ft and a stick float.
Now the bad news!! the peg held a huge bed of Canadian Pondweed (what’s it doing in the Thames?) and despite burying the hook inside the caster it proved almost impossible to get a smooth trot down the swim.
After about 2 hours of flogging a dead horse word came down that a few slabs were starting to show and with just 1 small Perch and a couple of even smaller Roach to show for my efforts out came the feeder to see if I could find myself a Bream.
All the time the wind has been increasing and the sky was getting darker,and then the heavens opened. Half an hour later and 2 gorgeous rainbows appeared.(1 fainter than the other)…………………




However there was to be no crock of gold or even Bream for me, and at the end of the match just a couple of Gudgeon and Ruffe had been added to the net to give me a rather meagre 10ozs for 10th place.
Never mind though it’s still better than sitting around at home.






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