Jubilee River 18-8-16

With the summer quickly disappearing and with me not get enough fishing in, I decided to have a go at a new water – the Jubilee River near Maidenhead. I’ve looked at the stretch a few times, usually while cycling, so I knew what it looked like, but information on the stretch was very light on the ground.

The Jubilee River

I picked a peg a few below the bridge, set up a waggler (it was flowing very slowly) found the depth (deep, about 8ft) and started fishing a few rods lengths out whilst pinging maggots over the top.

The action was almost instant. From bleak.

So it was a case of feeding one area, casting to another and then once the bait had got to a decent depth running the rig through the baited area. This started to work and produced a string of roach.

First roach of the day

Nothing massive, but nice fish in the 4-8oz band in absolute mint condition.

The water was surprisingly clear close in, and as you looked down into the margins you could see a myriad of fry rushing about. This is a good sign for the future, I suspect this stretch could be something special in the future.

Crystal clear in the margins. There are some fry in this picture, but they are very difficult to see.

Later on a tried another peg further down on one of the canal-type sections where there is an island in the middle of the flow. This was amazingly deep and I found that I had nearly the same depth as the rod length under the rod tip. Fishing close in produced a few nice roach, dace and perch before the swim died. What I would have given for a pole at this point and some groundbait – lesson for next time. 

Fishing underneath the rod tip

Final swim for the session was above the bridge on the outside of a bend where the current swung towards me. A hefty cast out into the flow (which was still quite slow) followed by a could ‘pult of bait produced some more roach before this swim finally slowed down and I called a halt to my short session.

Quality roach from the Jubilee

Quality roach, barely a soul to be seen – I think I may have to have a few more goes at this venue. 

Needless to say, work put paid to that, but then there’s always 2017.

Another view - it's starting to look like a proper river

Getting back to the car park I happened to bump into a regular on the venue and got lots of tips on what’s present along with how and where to fish it. So hopefully, next time will be even better.

Total catch: about 40 fish (mostly roach) for 7lb odd.