It's not often one gets round the airport section of the M25 without stopping so the fishing gods were truly shining on me when I arrived near Weybridge on The River Thames at half past ten.
After a bit of rain the river was pushing through well so I settled upon a newly formed sand bank opposite D'Oyly Carte island. There would be no farcical comic opera moments I hoped trying my best to refrain from any Gilbert and Sullivan themed punnery, for the time being at least.
My little private beach looked mighty nice, I say private but anyone could have joined me, although they would have struggled for room, It looked like one of those little desert islands you see in cartoons, complete with washed up logs.
My stool was sinking in these new sands, the tread from my boots were the first, it was a wonderful spot to leave footprints and take home memories, for me it was home for a few hours, just to wet a line.
The flow here was a lot slower and screamed perch close in. I set up a 4 x no4 stick with tapered shot, shirt button, leading to a no10 dropper. Hoping to get fish on the drop and if bleak showed then a rethink would take place of course.
Spoiler alert there was to be no bleak at all, a welcome change from the middle Thames. It was a dace v roach battle from the off, so much for my perch hypothesis too. The roach and dace traded blows and the dace were a decent size, with the odd tonker.
The roach weren't big but weren't tiny either so it was a lovely few hours getting a few fish on float.
Rowers passed close at times but I was cool with it, everything was polite and relaxed. We were all enjoying a summer day on the river.
The odd pleasure cruiser sauntered by and one hire boat went by with ladies enjoying a glass or two of wine, their boisterous applause accompanied the time old "He's got a fish" so I had to milk it and take a comedy bow as I slipped another nice dace back.
Half way through the session I changed to more of a bulk shotted rig to trundle deeper as the dowstream breeze picked up and threatened to get fiesty, the wind to be fair did iron out the wash from boats, plus being opposite an island half the traffic went the other side, however the downstream wind picking up meant I had to stand to mend the line better. I finally managed a couple of perch, but the bigger ones eluded me, It didn't stop me catching more silvers as the dace and roach kept coming.
The wildlife was typical Thames fare, as a black swan drifted by in the distance, far from the zoom of my little camera, while parakeets squawked their nonsense verse overhead, a weird looking goose made an even weirder sound and the plop from canada geese leaving the gardens way on the far side echoed across, like they were next to me, although as the day wore on they were, having drifted to the nearby jetty much like the ferry did all day..
Then finally a good bend in the rod came, courtesy of the world's thinnest pike, ambushing a dace, which I saw spin and make a lucky escape, the silver dart did just that leaving me to play it's nemesis. This pike was probably two feet long but less than 2lbs in weight, It didn't half go though. I did say on the opening day the next pike was going to get landed, so here is the behemoth.
The sandy bar was a lovely spot to watch these fish swim off, the roach and dace looked translucient in the clear shallows, the perch sat there momentarily all stripes and fins erect, as for that jack pike, well it rocked it's camo gloriously, moving almost snake like, through the shallows back to the deeps
That was more or less it for the day as I wanted to beat the rush home, just one dace followed the pike and then it went dead, perhaps due to a stroppy predator wanting a second attempt at dinner.
It was a good time to pack up, 4 hours fished for 25 roach, 24 dace, 2 perch and that monster esox for a total of 52, around 10lb in total, all the fish were immaculate
My panorama for the day wasn't bad as I watched the ferry trundle back and forth where the Wey meets Shepperton Lock, it was a busy environment but at the same time quite peaceful being a weekday.
As I packed up a great crested grebe did it's rounds. There were no Gondoliers or Pirates to be seen, coming from D'Oyly Carte island, as I bid my little 'desert island' farewell..
The M25 moved on the way home (sort of) but I'll take that all day long. Much like like ladies earlier I'll enjoy a glass (or two) of wine and watch England v Netherlands in the Euro semi-final, if the game goes good or bad I'll still reminisce on a nice day by the river.
PS, The game went well, must rearrange the same scenario for the final - A nice day's fishing, bottle of wine at home, watch game.
