Tom Aldous had a successful end to the river season on his local River Itchen in Hampshire.

He arrived at the river to find that it had a tinge of colour, perfect conditions for roach, and with the colour dropping out by the hour, he felt he would be in with a good chance of picking up a few grayling too. Tom explains how the day unfolded:

I tackled up with a Drennan Wire Avon float, a bulk of shot just above the hooklink and a couple of droppers on my hooklength, which was a pre-tied size 18 Red Maggot Hook-To-Nylon.

I started off feeding hemp along with a few pouches of maggots. After 30 minutes of feeding I ran my float through for the first time and had a tentative bite from the first roach of the session. A few more runs through produced more roach along with a nice fish over a pound. The trout and grayling started to muscle in as the light levels increased, so I decided to wander further up the stretch in search of a big grayling on the shallow gravel runs.

After a few runs down with the float I landed a nice grayling just over a pound. I carried on working my way up, reaching a confluence where a small carrier fed into the river. I repeated the feeding procedure and after bumping a fish on my first trot, I started to catch grayling along with the odd small roach. Towards the end of the run in the slacker water, I managed to land the biggest fish of the session, a grayling weighing 2lb on the dot.

With the light fading I returned to the first swim that produced the better stamp of roach and opted to fish a 20g Gripmesh Feeder into the nearside crease. After a few tentative missed bites and a lost fish I managed to finally land the biggest roach of the day at 1lb 10oz (pictured above).