The Thames...

This was an on the spur of the moment trip as the eldest had the offer of a ticket to see England v Oz at Twickenham.

I was full of cold so I wasn't in best form BUT it provided me with an opportunity to fish the Thames... it was such a shame that it was in flood!

It was going to be useless piking BUT I still tried and as with all rivers in flood I always loose a lure... this time it was a spinner (mental note to self... go and buy another!).

I didn't bother with the fly rod and in fact bought two pints of red maggots to drown - along with a 3m fishing pole ostensibly for my nephew Tom to use (he lasted a couple of casts and obviously knew it wouldn't fish well). The cut behind their home was still and had colour SO should have supplied even gudgeon to play with . However, it was really slow and I even used a bag of halibut pellets that I had deep in the recesses of my tackle box to carpet a small patch of the cut and topped that off with red maggots to entice would be suspects in. I watched the pellets pop
oil to the surface like an anti-aircraft battery filling the sky with flack. Sadly there were NO takers.

However, there were upsides... The Great Crested Grebe in winter plumage... who scared me to death as he surfaced by my float! The Red Kite circling high above the late autumn trees lining the river and the family of swans with the cygnets losing their baby plumage.

I passed the time of day with many on the river, some finding out how it (the river) was fishing, parents enticing children to peer into the box of writhing maggots (perpetual motion at its best) and three canoeists from the Song of the Paddle Forum that I find myself on occasionally as I flirt with the idea of a canoe... just to see if I can get nearer the fish!

No fish... but then some days it isn't about the fish!