Return to Napton

Nothing re-captures the excitement and anticipation felt as a schoolboy angler like the return to your old stomping grounds, now as a 40 year old when in reflective mood and my thoughts turn to fishing two places spring to mind Coombe Pool home of huge shoals of big bream and Napton Reservoir with it's hard fighting and obliging tench.
I haven't been to Napton for a good few years but I still reckon I've put in more hours than most, it was here that I caught my first sizable tench and learnt the methods and tricks required to put a few extra fish in the bag.
The weather forecast had been proved wrong, rather than the dull and cool day expected it was proving to be yet another day of bright sunshine and little breeze, not good for Napton as a rule but dad and I set off anyway at 3pm. On arrival there were several cars in the car park, usually a sign that the place is fishing well, the venue itself was as beautiful as ever with the water shimmering invitingly in the sunlight and as usual an abundance of wildlife to enhance the angling experience.
The best pegs at this time of year tend to be those on the causeway beyond the bridge and fishing into what used to be the big resevoir (before the two resevoirs were joined) this is where the tench accumulate prior to spawning, these pegs were taken and the three anglers there were all catching quite well. Second choice would have been from the causeway into the small res but again these were taken so we settled for two pegs together on the big res car park bank.
Napton can get pretty weedy and peering into the depths as far out as I could see the bottom was covered so I opted to go out on the feeder to try to get beyond the weed, next door dad was setting up his usual float rod.
I mixed up some brown crumb about 50-50 with Sensas Lake and added maggots, casters and sweetcorn and baited up with double maggot on an 18, several casts drew no response whatsoever and dads float stood motionless too, weed was a problem with dads float refusing to settle on some occasions while each of my retrieves picked up a fist sized clump of silkweed.
It was proving hard going, sweetcorn on the hook had failed to produce and caster had resulted in a series of tremors and plucks on the tip.
I've often been sceptical where hair rigs are concerned, a bare hook next to the bait seems about as unnatural as can be, but I do carry some match hair rigs which I bought for some commercial fishery or other and opted to give one a try.
Three seconds after the feeder hit the water the rod was wrenched nearly out of my hands and a two pound tench was soon on the bank. Bites when they came, I would love to say it was all action from this point on but it wasn't, were very positive and although not a convert yet I will definately use hair rigs here again. A second tench of about four pounds and a third, about two pounds were my only other fish other than a good tench lost close to the net. Dad did manage one fish to corn but that was his only bite of a short and tricky session, but lessons, as they always should be, were learnt and we'll be back.