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Chris Plumb's Blog

19 December

River Kennet - Newbury   0945 - 1415   Very mild, with milky sunshine at times. AT 59ºF. WT53ºF. River low and clear - almost at summer levels.   3 Chub; 3lb 1oz & 2 'pounders'. 5 Perch; 4 over 1lb - biggest 1lb 15oz, and one just shy of 1lb. 20 Dace. 6 Roach. 2 Grayling; both around 12oz. 3 Brownies; 2lb+ fish and a couple of parr fish.   Very productive trotting session - standing in the middle of the river in shirt-sleeves in December! Found a shoal of perch right at the end of th
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

16 December

Kennet & Avon (flowing) Canal - Thatcham   1400 - 1600   Very mild & overcast. AT 56ºF, WT 52ºF. River with a tinge of colour after yesterday's rain.   5 Perch; 2lb 8oz, 2lb 3oz, 2 'pounders' and one just under.   Couldn't resist such perfect perch conditions. Fished the swim where I had my PB back in 2013 but which hasn't really produced much since. All fish caught in the last 45 mins.
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

14 December

Kennet & Avon Canal - Thatcham   1400 - 1600   Mild, overcast with drizzly rain clearing to a rather lovely sunset (see crap picture below!) AT & WT both 50ºF.   5 Perch; 3lb 10oz, 2lb 2oz, 1lb 12oz & 2 small-uns. 1 Roach - small but still somehow managed a whole lob!   Boss has very kindly given me a few days off work following Paul's passing and having spent the morning making a couple of calls, reading condolences and eulogies - and Clare's
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

12 December

K&A (flowing) Canal, Thatcham.   1115 - 1600   Mild, overcast a VERY blowy. Rive at normal levels and quite clear.   20 dace. 1 roach.   Failed attempt at a big stripey and/or chub. Wind was a total PITA making trotting close to hopeless.
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

10 December

Kennet & Avon Canal - Thatcham   1345 - 1600   Mild, breezy with some drizzle in the air. AT 51ºF. WT 49ºF.   2 Perch: 2lb 13oz, 1lb 11oz. 1 Pike; 4lb 3oz. 1 roach.   Had a half day workshop in Newbury so rather than go back to work - seemed the perfect excuse to take some time owed and squeeze in a couple of hours fishing! All fish on lobs and all caught in the last hour.
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

6 December

Northcroft Stream - Newbury   0930 - 1330   Mild, overcast and blustery with some drizzle in the wind at times. 12ºC. River at 'normal' levels and quite clear.   2 Chub; 3lb 3oz & 2lb. 2 perch - both around 10-12oz. 30 dace, 4 roach, 1 Rainbow trout - 3lb.   Aim was to get amongst the chub - achieved with the first 2 fish caught - though when I dropped down from the weirpool to my more reliable chub spot I could only catch dace. Rainbow fight was interesting at is was chased around t
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

27 November

Lower Itchen Fishery   0745 - 1615   Mild (10ºC all day) with some drizzle and some sunny spells becoming increasingly breezy. River at 'normal' levels.   49 Grayling; 16 over 1lb, best 3 - 1lb11oz, 1lb 9oz & 1lb 8oz. 2 Chub; 2lb 14oz & 2lb 10oz. 6 Brownies to 2½lb. A doz+++ parr (mainly salmon parr I think)   Started with an hour in Wards Pool at the top of the fishery and had the 1-11 straight away - a great start though I wouldn't better it! Tha
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

22 November

River Lambourn - Shaw   0900 - 1200.   Cool and Cloudy. AT up to 4ºC after the first hard frost of the autumn; got down to -4ºC in out greenhouse last night.   River low - EA river gauge at Shaw reading 13cm.   47(!) Grayling with over a third of fish 12oz+. Best two ladies 1lb 6oz & 1lb 4oz. 3 Brownies - all small.   Cracking morning's trotting. Fished 10 swims in total and had fish from 8 of them. Majority of fish, however (over 30!), caught from just 2 spots...
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Jigging for perch 20.11.15

3pm to 4.45pm Thames   Plan A was to go roach fishing, but all the clouds disappeared and I though lure fishing might be a better bet. My new ultralite rod will have to wait for Christmas, but I thought it would be an interesting experiment to try jigging with a 12' feeder rod, with the most flexible tip. This would build on my tuition by Kappa a few days ago, and I would use two methods: casting to the middle of the river, and slowly working the lure in; and jigging below the rod tip.   I f
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Ultra-light 17 Nov 2015

1.30 - 4.30pm The Thames   Kappa kindly took me out for an afternoon introduction to U/L, borrowing his rods. The fish were in good form, and the extra flow meant they were a bit nearer, in which aided contact. Nevertheless, there was a dramatic improvement on my previous attempts at lure fishing on the Thames, where I have caught one or two pike but found the perch hard to find compared with my previous experience on the Kennet. Let me rephrase that - in 18 months I have only caught one perch
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

15 November

River Frome - Wool.   0815 - 1415   Mild (14ºC), Overcast with drizzle at times and blowing an absolute hoolie (downstream). East Stoke river gauge 97cm.   33 Grayling. 16 over 1lb, with 4 over 2lb (though not by much) biggest 2lb 3oz. 3 Brownies, 1 'pounder' and 2 parrs.   Bit of a gamble which paid off handsomely - my best ever return from this water - in terms of overall numbers - good to see a whole range of fish sizes too. After yesterday's rain it wa
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

8 November (part 2)

River Kennet, Newbury   1030 - 1330.   Mild and overcast. River with a little bit more water in it - probably up a couple of inches or so on 10 days ago.   1 Chub; 2lb 6oz. 3 Perch; 1lb 6oz, 1lb 1oz and a fish of around 10-12oz. 20 Dace, 8 Roach. 2 Grayling, 2 Gudgeon, 2 Brownies.   So if I couldn't get a decent perch from the canal - plan B was to see if I could find some chub. Achieved at the 3rd swim (of 4 fished) - though by then I'd already had the perch! Maybe that's where I was go
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

8 November (part 1)

Kennet & Avon canal - Widmead   0645 - 1000   Mild and overcast. WT 55ºF   2 Perch; 1 circa 1lb. 1 Pike - another tiny one of 14oz!   Perfect perching conditions - shame no one told the perch. Original plan for this weekend had been a trip down to Dorset for grayling but this week's rain has pushed levels up over 2 feet on the river Frome so with relatively benign conditions in West Berkshire I was hoping to emulate (or even better) last week's perch haul. Bites just didn't come and
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Wareham 2-4 Nov 2015

Took a 2/3 day fishing break on the free stretch of the River Frome with 3 objectives:   a) catch a really big roach, though I realised this was a long shot b)catch some middle-ranking roach c) get a pb dace   Well the biggies weren't around, and it turns out there are very few middle-ranking roach there. I was mislead on that score by a local angler when I dropped in in September. So that left the dace.   Unfortunately they were a bit AWOL also. Some exceptional dace had been comin
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

31 October

Kennet & Avon Canal - Thatcham   0630 - 0930   Mild, murky and calm. WT 54ºC. (AT same.) Perfect perching weather!   7 Perch; 3lb 6oz, 2lb 8oz, 2lb 3oz, 1lb 14oz and 3 small ones - one close to 1lb the others no where near! 1 Chublet.   Really paid to get here at first light - bites from the off and had 3 of the bigger perch including the 3lber on the bank by 7 o'clock. Bites dried up after an hour and only 2 fish after 0800 and one of those was the ch
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

29 October

River Lambourn - Newbury   1330 - 1630   Drizzly and breezy (despite the promise of a dry afternoon). 13/14ºC . River very low and full of leaves!   26 Grayling with more than half needing the net and a lot of fish an ounce or two either side of a pound. Biggest weighed in at 1lb 5oz. 4 trout to 1¾lb.   Usual catch a couple and move on tactics - fish very spooky in very shallow water. Caught quite a few by 'sight fishing' - watching the maggot get taken an
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

28 October

River Kennet - Newbury   0900 - 1400   Warm (for late October) and mainly sunny. 15ºC. River very low and threadbare.   6 Chub; 5 over 1lb. All in the 1-2lb range save for a 4lb 4oz fish. 30+ Dace most quite small apart from one clonking fish of 12oz. A doz+ Roach with around half in the 6-8oz bracket (nice!), 4 Gudgeon, 1 Bleak & 3 Brownies to a pound and a bit.   Unexpectedly had a free day and with Jaq out all day it seemed the perfect excuse for a
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

24 October

Kennet & Avon Canal - Avington   0730 - 1130   Mild, overcast and drizzly. WT 53ºF. AT 55ºF.   2 Perch; 2lb 0oz & 1lb 11oz. 18 Roach: some really chunky ones with 2 over 1lb - best 1lb 2oz. 1 Chub <1lb (just). 2 Skimmers to 1lb 6oz. 1 Gudgeon.   First time I've ever fished this bit of club water - and it was the whispers of big perch showing last winter that had me pulling into the car park whilst it was still dark. I'd recce'd the water a coupl
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

19 October

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   1800 - 2300   Cool, calm and overcast. 11ºC river low and carrying quite a bit of leaf litter.   1 Chub: 5lb 2oz.   A similar start to my last visit here 3 weeks ago in fact I have a suspicion it might even be the same fish. However as my camera was still plugged into the computer at home I didn't get to take it's portrait for comparison. Only bite of the evening - so no barbel main course after the chub starter. Was subjected to a barrage of twitting from a
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

17 October

Kennet & Avon Canal - Thatcham   0715 - 1015   Overcast and cool (9/10ºC), with a 'fresh' Easterly making it feel even cooler.   6 Perch; 2lb 13oz, 2 'pounders', 3 tiddlers. 1 Brownie - 2lb (!!)   Near perfect conditions for perch (apart from the wind direction) had me bankside before it was light enough to see my float. And as soon as it was light it wasn't long before I had my first decent perch of the autumn on the bank. Alas the boat activity start
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Rusty's Blog

A Barbel at last!

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 11th October 2015   Following on from what was a very successful social event at Rutland (but somewhat lacking in terms of my Zander return) I wanted to get back into familiar territory so with bleary eyes after a long Saturday morning journey back from Oakham I dragged myself off to the tackle shop for maggots and lobworms. The plan was to fully explore the Newbury town centre stretch on Sunday.   I’d tried some of it the weekend before with some success, a chu
Rusty

Rusty

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Chris Plumb's Blog

9 October

Kennet & Avon Canal, Thatcham   0700 - 1430 (plus an hour on the river proper)   Bright sunshine after a foggy start. Warm - upto 16ºC   1 Perch; 1lb 10oz, 1 Pike; 14oz!, 4 Chub (all small), 2 Dace, 1 Roach, 1 Gudgeon, and 3 Brownies; 1lb 14oz and 2 parrs.   Umm - probably not the best conditions to go prospecting new perch swims - though the only perch I did catch was from a 'new' spot. Pikelet was first cast - in a usually reliable perch swim - but o
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

3 October

Kennet & Avon Canal - Enborne   0645 - 0915   Northcroft Stream   0930 - 1100   Cool and foggy - lifting to bright sunshine for last half an hour.   Canal: 4 Perch; 1lb 3oz & 3 tiddlers. 1 Chub; 1lb 9oz, 1 Roach 1lb exactly.   A morning on the canal in search of perch - or at least that was the plan - so float fishing whole lobs to far bank bushes and snags. Somewhat surprised therefore to get a 1lb roach pretty much first cast
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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