Keith tackles the Colne

I thoroughly enjoyed my pre-breakfast session on the Gerrards Cross controlled section of the Colne, the bit that surrounds Uxbridge Business Park and I caught some cracking fish. But I still have that feeling that I should have gone to the Thames.

Keith Arthur
Quotes of the week

TIGHT LINES
Every Friday on Sky Sports

I spent most of Sunday trudging river banks, wading through waist-high nettles, their 2008 growth undisturbed by human foot.

Small mammals scurried from my path and birds just ignored me as if I was the first man on Earth. I needed to find somewhere that I could take a camera crew and be fairly sure of catching a fish within the normal working hours of that crew.

As I was asking them to be on the bank at 4.30 in the morning (Yes, there are two 4.30's every 24 hours; the other one is 'tea-time'!) I thought it only fair to let them depart in time for breakfast - maybe brunch.

I spent an inordinately long time looking at the Thames, for several reasons, the main one being that the river flows virtually at the end of my road. It looked, to coin an angling phrase, cock-on - except for the colour. A long period of easterly winds and high pressure had turned the river the colour of ale, like a glass of bitter.

It was clear, at least two and-a-half feet visibility, but this nasty brown colour. If it had been a thicker colour, as it had a few days previously, the result of the previous week's deluges, I would almost certainly have settled for it, but that bitter colour - no thanks!

I actually went as far as to throw some feed into a few likely spots, the main one being above the tidal limit at Teddington Weir in a deep swim that I know holds bream and often carp too.

Special

I also have a sneaky feeling that one day it will produce something really special, in the form of a massive chub. What worried me was the accessibility: it is right next to a footpath and not far from a convenient parking spot.

Back on the tidal section there are not many places where I can sit and fish with a camera tripod in a spot that would produce a decent angle. Again, I was concerned that I'd arrive in that grey half-light of dawn and finds someone fishing, catching MY fish over MY bait.

So I went to the River Colne, as you will see, with a very satisfactory result.

Back on the Thames though, I may have missed out. That nasty bitter colour had reverted to a more regular tinge and the fish fed, for some with abandon! Several 100lb-plus bags were recorded, mostly bream but with some good chub, roach and dace thrown in for good measure.

One angler who had been barbel-less for his entire tidal Thames angling career set his rod against the railing outside The White Cross in Richmond, enjoying a pint of liquid of similar hue to the river the previous day, with a large lobworm on his hook cast to midriver.

A solid whack on the rod tip nearly caused him to spill some beer but he managed to recover in time to rescue his rod only to find a 6lb barbel attached!

Monster

Although I only heard of one carp, I can't believe it was the only one landed from the tidal on the 16th and since then, the perfect conditions have seen many more grace the banks, with several in the mid-20lb bracket and all in 100 per cent perfect condition. A friend of mine landed the biggest bream I have ever heard of from my local stretch, a monster of 9ln 6oz, huge for ANY river.

Another old pal from my east London match-fishing days showed up on Tuesday, fishing one of my favourite roach and dace swims. He was trying for bream but I soon talked him out of it and insisted I should test out his stickfloat rig. He agreed and after a half-a-dozen trots I had a small roach. I just knew that some steady feeding and accurate trotting would have seen me bag-up, but work called.

I thoroughly enjoyed my pre-breakfast session on the Gerrards Cross controlled section of the Colne, the bit that surrounds Uxbridge Business Park and I caught some cracking fish. But I still have that feeling that I should have gone to the Thames.

Tell you what, I'll take you there soon. Deal?

Keith answers your questions

CLUB CONCERNS
Please can you help? We are a small angling club in Sussex and we are having serious problems with poaching, people fishing our water without a club membership, and with no EA licence. We are also having fish taken from the lake to either be sold on or eaten, we have found snatch lines tied to trees with large hooks attached. We try to bailiff the lake but if we ask people fishing without club membership to leave and they refuse what can we do? We are powerless, we cannot appear to get much help with this situation from the authorities. Have you heard from other clubs with this problem, and have any idea how they have sorted this situation out? We cannot fence the lake in or have gates security fitted, so it is open access. I am sorry to say there will be a serious confrontation there some time, unless we can get some advise and help? We have spent many hours and members money in making the fishery into a great water, do we just give up? Derick Gray
KEITH SAYS: Derick, this is a very difficult situation and one that I hear all too often. Much depends on ownership of the water, fish and land. If you lease the lake then the riparian owner has a role to play. If you have people fishing there attempting to catch fish that you own (that part really matters) then the police should act as they are attempting, or conspiring, to steal your property, namely fish. If they are on your land then they are trespassing. When it gets messy is if you only have the fishing rights to someone else's lake, holding someone else's fish, on someone else's land. In my opinion, your best recourse would be to inform the owners that they are responsible for any action as otherwise their fish will be stolen and your rent payment depends on the likelihood of you catching fish! I would advise contacting Mike Heylin at FACT (http://factuk.co.u) or Martin Read at NAFAC (http://nafac.co.uk). Membership of NAFAC is highly recommended. Good luck!

SURFACE TENSION
Hello Keith, what's the best method and bait to take carp off the top? On a very recent day out you could see carp cruising on the surface, some of which were coming so close I thought about trying to land them with my net. I tried dog biscuits, they ate all the free offerings and not mine, I tried free lining with biscuits on a hair rig, tried a bubble float with long hook link of fluro-carbon, I then tried covering the hook with luncheon meat and biscuit on hair, still nothing. I eventually took 4 reasonable fish of the bottom on the method with luncheon meat on a hair, could you give me any tips or let me know if I'm doing something wrong? By the way, loving the show. Craig Harpur
KEITH SAYS: Hi Craig, we had a bit of a chat about surface fishing with Chilly (Ian Chilcott) when he was in the bothy a couple of weeks back. In his opinion the artificial dog mixers, made by Enterprise Tackle, take some beating as they can be hooked on one side whilst the other is loaded with a shot and sits in the water more like a freebie. I avoid fluorocarbon for floater fishing as, being denser than normal monos, it tends to sink, dragging the bait back towards the controller or bubble float. I use Drennan Double Strength as it is thin for it's strength and sits high in the water. One of the problems when using mixers is that the hooked one looks different. For a change, go for one of the Complete Diets. Baileys are one maker but many supermarkets have their own version. I've used Tesco Premium with some success. The biscuits are a variety of shapes, colours and textures and make it more difficult for fish to pick the 'wrong-un'.

Feeding is also key: feed too many and they'll follow them down the wind, feed too few and they won't get interested in the first place. I spoke to Terry Hearn about his methods for using floaters and he feeds one or two biscuits at a time to set up a feeding line. One fish will become interested, then others join in. Feed enough to make them compete, rather than simply graze, then slip your hookbait in amongst them. One other tip: if the fish are at range and you can't loose-feed, put some biscuits in a PVA mesh bag with a stone in and fire that out. The stone sinks the bag to the bottom, water melts the PVA and the pellets float out. It's a decent way of beating the ducks too. Let me know how you get on. Tight lines!

Got a question or want some tips or advice from Keith? Use the feedback form below or mail it in HERE