Big Fish Column: Angler bags £750 after reeling in first tagged trout at Haywards Farm Lake 

Martin Thumwood (right) receives a cool £750 from Sportfish team member Jonathan Tomlinson

Despite some unseasonably warm temperatures last week, the general trend is still a cooling one with low overnight temperatures slowly making their presence felt but summer isn’t quite over yet as a few local catfish are still feeding, carp are still being taken off the top and there are bream aplenty.

First prize trout is bagged!

The reopening of Haywards Farm Lake last Sunday, 6th October, proved to be particularly profitable for venue regular Martin Thumwood, who bagged one of the two tagged trout in his haul of 15 fish and walked away with a cool £750. Martin fished a black blob to tempt the fish and is pictured here with Sportfish team member Jonathan Tomlinson passing over the cash. One more tagged fish remains at large in the lake and with another £750 plus up for grabs it could be you!

Finch Farm catfish

Although an occasional fish will feed during exceptionally mild winter spells, October usually spells the beginning of the end for catfishing but a few late specimens are still showing at Finch Farm. Rob Delaney was the latest angler to report a nice fish from the venue with a 23lb 6oz fish that fell to a sardine head presented on heavy float gear comprising a small pencil-shaped pike float with 12lb line through to 40lb armour braid and a size 2 hook.

Thames chub

A little rainfall to freshen up the rivers last week did no harm at all and despite the first autumn leaves beginning to hinder fishing there were reasonable catches around the local waters.

Chub remain the mainstay of sport for many and the Thames at Bray produced a couple of good fish for local rod Tom Harris last week. Tom fished the PVA bag and pellet to record fish of 5lb 5oz and 6lb 1oz during an overnight session.

Thames Riverfest bream

Staying with the Thames and the river at Child Beale is well known to many local anglers and it is one of the local Thames venues that regularly turns up huge bags of bream. No surprise then that records tumbled at the Riverfest qualifying match on the venue last week as the bream shoals got their heads down.

Four bream bags in excess of 100lb were recorded with Barry Chapman (Maver AS) netting 29 fish on the groundbait feeder for a top weight of 156lb 14oz. Runner up was Paddy Newman (Sevenoaks) with 145lb 12oz, Dave Harrell was third with 135lb 13oz and Trev Baker (Reading) fourth with 108lb 11oz.

The venue is well worth a visit over the coming weeks if you fancy tapping into some of the best bream fishing on the river and there are some nice roach showing on the section too, with at least one bag over 20lb recorded on the Riverfest event.

Any anglers wishing to report catches may contact me at ian@bigfishtrail.com