27th June. River Kennet, Thatcham.

5am ‘til 11 am.

Barbel (2lb ish), 6 or 7 Trout (I lost count, but I think I caught at least one twice) biggest 3lb 2oz, Chub (2lb ish) several dace and gudgeon.

An early morning session at the river, timed so that I can get back for brunch with the missus and 8 month old boy.

Dawned warm and hazy at 5am, but looking like it was going to get increasingly bright and sultry later. I decided to fish the second stretch available to me, downstream of my previous early season session. This time I took a 1.5lb TC Avon rod as well as the specimen trotter with the intention of getting a big barbel by trundling pellets, meat etc.

Selected an interesting deep undercut bank leading a shallow, gravel riffle. Started by trotting maggot on the pin, and caught several trout and a small chub in relatively quick succession. With hindsight this was probably a mistake as it would spook any barbel even though the deep undercut appeared undisturbed.

After an hour’s trotting I fed a few pellets and dropped the baited pellet rig in the current following its slow progress along the bottom with my fingers on the line. After nearly an hour of nothing, I switched to hair rig pellet on leger – still nothing! I decided that the aforementioned trotting had ruined everything, so moved downstream to another stretch with a glide followed by a sharp bend.

Starting again on the trotting (I’m addicted) I caught a really good 3lb trout on the second or third run through. It pulled and rushed around so much I was convinced I had a barbel at first. Once landed, it was carefully unhooked, weighed and photographed – it was a wild one as well. I was really pleased with this and carefully held it in the current until it swam away as it had really tired itself out. Following this I managed a barbel of 2lb or so (I didn’t weigh it) and then a couple of dace.

I then tried the trundling, but I had probably ruined the swim by my obsessive trotting. Apart from a chub of around 2lb I got nothing on the trundled or legered pellet, meat or large bunch of maggots. A large extended family of geese started flapping around in the river in what appeared to be an attempt to get the young to move out – I wondered whether this had affected the fishing.

As I was walking back to the car I passed another angler who was setting up in the swim I fished previously. He was legering pellet in the same swim as I was. He appeared pleased when I confirmed that I had already been fishing and feeding the pellet there. I’m not sure I would be!

My season so far on this stretch had been a bit of a disappointment on the chub and barbel front – the trout however had been happy to oblige! Pity they weren’t when I tried to catch them on the fly in May – only managing one.