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Chris Plumb's Blog

30 November

Flowing Canal & river Kennet near Thatcham   0715 - 1215   Cool, bright and breezy after a cloudy start. WT 47ºF   1 Gudgeon and 1 trout parr.   Fruitless perch hunt in the company of Paul - we both started in THE swim (see 28 Oct entry ) but despite what I considered reasonably favourable conditions I couldn't help wonder that we were 48 hours too late (Thursday was perfect!) and neither of us got a hint of interest in our float fished lobs. So
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

23 November

River Lambourn - Shaw   0815 - 1145   Bright, cool and sunny. Temp up to 5ºC. River quite low as you'd expect this time of year.   31 grayling; All a decent size, nothing below a band 3 (20cm) and most 25cm+. Biggest 1lb 5oz with lots of fish an ounce or so either side of the 1lb mark. 1 trout parr.   First trip to the Lambourn this winter and it didn't disappoint. Most fish (2/3rds) from the church stretch where I was also bitten off by a rather large pik
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Side-Planer 22.11.13

3-4pm. Cold bright day. Not really a proper session. I fancied giving the side-planer a walk along the flowing canal with a Mepps attached. I've caught jacks on the s-p with wobbled smelt, but never had anything on a lure and I decided to have a go. But I lacked confidence as to what was happening to the lure. There was a fair flow, and not being able to see the lure, and not having direct contact with it, I had little idea how deep it was - and I felt it needed to be near the bottom on such a c
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Dace Attack 2 - failed (18.11.13)

2-4pm. A beautiful grey day, should have been just the job. My plan was to fish Colthrop (a stretch of Kennet for info of non locals), but for some reason my key didn't work so I couldn't get through to the main part of the complex and was limited to a few swims on the back stream.   My aim was to catch a reasonable dace, ideally to improve on my sparse pb of 6.5oz. I tried about 5 swims, but not a touch till the last, somewhat slower and deeper, swim where I caught a few very small dace and
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

15 November

Middle Kennet Estate   0715 - 1630   Bright sunshine all day after a frosty start. A lovely benign autumn day, temps up to 9ºC. River low - in fact very low given the amount of rain we've had in the last 6 weeks...   14 Chub; 11 over 1lb - most between 1½ and 2¾lb. 3 over 3lb, best 2 - 4lb 2oz & 3lb 15oz.11 Perch; 4 over 1lb all between 1lb 7oz & 1lb 15oz. 50+ roach and dace in roughly equal numbers (Slightly more roach) nothing worthy of the scales though a
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Dace attack failed 11.11.13

Rainsford farm 3.00-4.45pm   Nice cloudy day with slight mist. River quite fast, and turbulent in many places. Trotted for dace with single and double maggot. I decided to try downstream of the foot bridge, but with the frequent trees along the bank and also fallen trees in the river there were not many nice glides long enough, given the speed of the water. In the end I spent most of my brief stay in one swim, but the dace weren't interested. My honour was saved by a half pound brown trout!
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

10 November

River Frome - Wool   0815 - 1445   Bright and sunny with a cool breeze. River in good flow but quite coloured up. River gauge at East Stoke 0.90m   10 Grayling; 7 over 1lb - best 3; 2lb 13oz, 2lb 2oz, 1lb 12oz. 4 Brownies - 3 over 1lb - biggest just under 4lb, 1 Salmon Parr.   After last winter I was determined to get down to Dorset at the first opportunity - even if conditions were likely to be sub-optimal. Which certainly was the case. There was a lot mo
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

2 November

Flowing Canal (K&A), Nr Thatcham   0645 - 1000   Foggy start, brightening up. 7º - 10ºC   9 Dace - all good uns, biggest 11oz!   If the last 2 hours of daylight produced a red letter day - would the first 2 hours be the same? The answer a categorical NO! A couple of half-hearted bites on lob was all I had to show before getting the trotting rod out for the last 45 mins and immediately getting among a really good stamp of dace - though even these stopped biting when the sun came out!
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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tomhaggett's Blog

That's more like it

17th October - Berkshire Lake   After last weeks complete and utter fail I had a bee in my bonnet and a score to settle so I popped back to the lake that I'd fished the evening on during my previous outing. I'd been down a couple of evenings previously to prep the spots and hopefully get the fish used to finding my bait in those areas. I'd bought a kilo or two of pellet along in the hope of keeping the fish grubbing around after they'd finished all the boilies off but quickly realised that a
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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tomhaggett's Blog

It's been a while...

It seems like ages since I wrote on here so I thought I'd get back up to date. To be honest the reason for not posting has mostly been a run of what I'm calling bad luck but in reality has been due to complete incompetence. I've had only one proper session back on that little stalking pool during which I managed 4 up to 13-14lbs or so. Unfortunately with the nights drawing in there's not enough light for the after work sessions that I was fishing.   As well as that I've squeezed in a co
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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Chris Plumb's Blog

28 October

Flowing Canal (Kennet & Avon) Nr Thatcham   1500 - 1715   Bright, VERY breezy, with a very heavy shower to finish - temps cooler than of late at 10ºC   3 Perch; 4lb 5oz (!!!) New PB , 3lb 8oz and a smallun of around 12oz. 1 Chub 3lb 6oz.   Blimey! Autumn perching campaign gets off the mark at last in spectacular fashion. Unexpectedly had the afternoon off so with the St Jude's storm easing away it was off to do some more prospecting on the canal. And y
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

25 October

Lower Itchen Fishery   0900 - 1815   Bright and breezy and quite warm after overnight rain - temps didn't dip below 16ºC all day. River really quite low despite this week's rain and carrying a bit of colour which dropped out during the day.   23 Grayling; 8 over 1lb - best 4, 2lb, 1lb 10oz & 1lb 8oz. 3 Chub; All over 2lb, best 4lb 14oz, 10 Roach (all small, alas), a dace, a small perch, a gudgeon, 4 brownies - biggest a cracking looking fish of 3lb, 1 small sea
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Kennet Ruffe 21.10.13

5pm - 6.45pm My first Kennet ruffe. Not much else I can say about today! A nice, reasonably mild October day and I was shielded from the wind. The venue was a canal turning area where 3 streams come in as well as the outflow from a canal lock. I've been told specimen roach have been caught here, and a couple of weeks ago someone told me he'd had a big bream. I fished maggot feeder, and I thought I was bound to have some action, but it was not to be. 3 mini fish and that was all.   I started b
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

19 October

River Kennet & Kennet & Avon Canal - Newbury   0730 - 1130   Warm with a little light drizzle at times.   14 Dace, 7 Perch - only one of which needed the net but was still well shy of a pound, 1 Roach (12oz).   Bit of an exploratory session with Paul - visiting some water I've not fished in decades and Paul hasn't even seen! I fished mainly lobs - trying to find some big perch while Paul picked up stacks of small roach and other 'bits' on maggot. My decent roach was on a whole lo
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Lower Itchen Fishery 14.10.13

2 - 6.30pm I haven't been to LIF for 6 years! Partly straightforward neglect, but in recent years also cos I can only normally handle a couple of hours standing due to back trouble, which doesn't really give value for money. But the back was great today - I stood most of the time and fished 4.5 hours.   The aim was to end a pb famine. My pb grayling is only 1lb 4oz, so as the grayling at LIF regularly go to 2lbs I felt I had a good chance - and of course a 2lber was the second aim.   The ri
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

12 October

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham.   0930 - 1300   Bright with sunny intervals after early rain. 10ºC. River low and carrying a bit of colour.   6 Chub - all over 1lb, biggest 3¼lb. 1 Barbel; 3¾lb. 6 Dace. 1 Roach & 3 spotties.   Well its been a while since I've had a session like that from here! In fact the last time I caught more than 3 chub in a session from this venue was on the first day of the 1993 season! (when I also had 6). Nothing particularly huge, 3 of them were around the 1½lb
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Mixed bag 7.10.13

5.15 - 6.45pm   I went to the top end of the White House stretch of the Kennet to trot maggot. When I last went there there was a strong flow coming in on the nearside bank through the marina, and I was planning to trot the crease, particularly for dace. My mingy pb is only 6.5oz.   This time the flow was much less which kiboshed my original plan, but I still fished the near bank. Somewhere at the back of my head I was planning to trot past some bushes where the fish were shielded from the p
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

4 October (Part 2)

River Kennet - Newbury   1100 - 1300   Warm with sunny spells, Breezy. 20ºC. River quite low.   2 Chub; 2lb 10oz, 2lb. 12 Dace, 10 Roach, 1 Gudgeon and a brownie.   So after a frustrating morning a couple of hours on the river to see if the chub would eat my worms - to which the answer was YES! Being a Friday I had expected to have the place to meself and planned to fish a number of swims. However as I turned up who should I see pulling on his chesties - Rusty! Being a gent he let me ha
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

4 October (Part 1)

Kennet and Avon Canal - Thatcham   0700 - 1000   Overcast and mild (16ºC) becoming breezy.   9 roach, 1 dace and a bleak!   Exploratory session, searching for and spectacularly failing to find some new perch swims. Fished 4 likely looking swims (3 I've never fished before) and didn't get a touch on lobs from any of them - not even from crayfish. Gave each spot a good half an hour on worm then had 5-10 mins on maggot to see if there were any bait fish around (there were every time!)   H
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Perch exploration 29/30.9.13

The essence of perch fishing seems to be that you do lots of hard work finding where the fish are, and then have a bonanza when you feel like it catching them. The latter is not too difficult, but the former is. At least, I find it extremely difficult, partly cos health issues mean I can't stand up/walk for too long, and partly I guess lack of patience/skill/determination etc.   Yesterday my plan was to spend an hour lure fishing the Hambridge section of the K&A canal, a stretch which I ha
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Chris Plumb's Blog

28 September (Part 2)

Speen Moors   0845 - 1200   Still mild and overcast with some milky sunshine. River quite low.   2 Perch (both circa 1lb), 6 roach, 1 dace, 1 skimmer, 1 spottie and a doz+ gudgeon.   More of a walk than a fishing session as I pretty much wandered around the whole venue. Gudgeon seemed to be everywhere! Tried a few of my usual perch AND chub swims without an awful lot of action - needs a bit of water!
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

28 September (Part 1)

Kennet & Avon Canal - Enborne   0700 - 0830   Mild and overcast.   4 Perch: 2 'pounders' though not by a lot. 1 Chub 1lb 10z. 1 Carp 5lb 3oz.   Detour en route to Speen to check out a couple of 'banker' stripey swims from last winter. First cast perfection as the lob plopped an inch from a semi-submerged branch was met with the float shooting under before it had time to cock and a powerful fish charged up the cut. I knew it wasn't a perch - and whilst I had hoped it would be a nice t
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

0
Chris Plumb's Blog

23 September

River Kennet - Near Thatcham   1900 - 2230   Clear evening becoming very foggy. Lovely evening to be out!   1 Barbel - 11lb 2oz   I've had a pretty patchy summer on the barbel front - a few schooly sized fish on the float have been fun but I was going into the last week of September not having had a barbel over 8lb for the first time since 98/99 season. So at the weekend I vowed to have a concerted effort between now and when the clocks go back to try and
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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