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20 September

River Kennet - Thatcham   1400 - 1700   Fine and sunny. 18ºC. River quite low.   1 Barbel; 5lb 6oz, 2 Chublets, 8 Dace, 3 Roach & 8 Spotties   Unexpectedly had a ½ day so seemed a pity NOT to spend it up to my calves in river water trotting a loafer through various runs. Fished a number of swims and had dace a small trout from all of them. Barbel was a real struggle to get in - and spent most of the fight trying to get downstream of it to coax it out of a weed-bed, wasn't even sure I

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

9 September

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   1915 - 2315   Cool, clear evening - though felt quite snug under the trees. River carrying a tinge of colour after recent rains.   3 Barbel; 7lb 4oz, 4lb 13oz, 3lb 10oz. 1 dace, 1 brownie.   This stretch of river is certainly 'saving my bacon' on the barbel front this year - and with Paul getting a brace of 9lbers from here last week there are some bigger ones to go at! As usual I started out with the trotting rod and as usual

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

Rumour of roach 9.9.13

I had some realistic plans for carp or perch for today, and then I heard a rumour about some good roach in one of the harder gravel pits. Typically, I gave up on the carp and perch and had a crack at the roach. Not a touch! Always the same - me and roach! I won't bore you with the details.

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

8 September

River Kennet - Newbury   0700 - 1000   Bright and sunny - river quite low. (Though nowhere near as low as 2011)   1 Chub 3lb 11oz,1 Perch (circa 1lb) 40+ Dace & Roach (2/3rds dace to 1/3rd roach). 8 gudgeon and 2 spotties.   Pleasant morning's trotting in the sunshine. Nice to see so many silver fish in the river - like to see a few more chub and barbel though!

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

The Lost Carp 2.9.13

6.30-9.30pm   Went to an easier water than last week in search of a carp. My plan was to decide when I got there whether to fish on the surface or the bottom, depending how many fish were active up top. There was loads of surface activity, but I realised I had forgotten my fluorocarbon leader and felt that 6lb mono might be a bit light, so fished with a float 12 feet out on the bottom using 8lb soft braid.   I chucked in some dog biscuits and immediately a carp came and snaffled them up, so

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2 September

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   1800 - 2015   Warm and sunny. River quite low now after a dry summer.   1 Barbel, 3lb, 1 Chub, 2½lb, 4 Dace, 1 Roach & 9 Spotties - including 1 of nearly 3lb!   Yesterday I took my bag of pellets out of my tackle bag to refill it, groove up some hook baits and flavour them up with some monster crab - the only flaw in that plan was forgetting to put said bag of pellets back into tackle bag - Doh!   Didn't forget me maggots so had to make do with a couple

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

30/31 August

Newbury AA Stillwater - Thatcham.   1930 - 0600   Mild night, quite breezy at times - temp didn't really get below 15ºC   2 Crucians, 2lb 1oz, 1lb 10oz. 3 Carp; a Common of 10lb 1oz and 2 Mirrors of 9-10 & 9-06, 1 Bream 2½lb.   Paul set the bar rather high for this trip as he visited this swim on Tuesday night and caught 6 crucians of similar stamp to my 2, a fan-tailled goldfish (an old friend, we've both caught it before!) and 3 carp to 14+lb.  

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

A bit of everything.

A few more pics to share... firstly from another quick evening fly fishing with my work mate on the commercial. We had approx 12 fish each in under 2 hours, these being the best 2.     After that I've only been down to the little stalking lake for a few quick evening sessions. I'v had quite a few now, each and every one as impressive as the last. They're such a nice strain of fish in there. Unfortunately they've got a bit cuter over the last week or so and to add to that one of my f

tomhaggett

tomhaggett

Moderate difficulty carp lake 26.8.13

6-10pm I've always liked the idea of float fishing for carp in the margins, but have never done it other than by accident on easy waters when my roach swim has been invaded. So when an angler who has been having some success with this style of fishing on one of our moderate difficulty waters invited me to come along I keenly took up the offer.   I fished 4 feet from the bank in 4-5 feet of water with luncheon meat over a mixture of shop bought groundbait and various extras. I baited and fishe

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

22/23 August

Harris Lake - Marsh Farm Fishery, Nr Godalming   1830 - 0900   Warm, balmy night under a full moon.   14 Crucians, 7 over 2lb, best 2 - 2lb 14oz & 2lb 10oz (smallest 1lb 7oz!). 14 Tench - all bar one over 3lb, best 5lb exactly. 2 Roach - a tiddler and a fish of 1lb 2oz, 6 rudd - all small and 2 perch ditto.   Well I think I've got those 2 species out of my system for another summer - simply cracking session which started with 4X2lb+ crucians in 4 casts

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

21 August

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   0930 - 1430   Warm and sunny.   1 Barbel, 4lb. 4 Chub - all between 8oz - 1lb. 18 Dace most really chunky - I weighed one at 11oz. 1 roach. A doz spotties most small save for a couple of pounders.   A lovely morning's trotting - accompanied for the first hour by Jaq! Bin a few years since she came fishing with me - but it was a lovely summer's morning and she did have an ulterior motive. And that motive was Blackberries! I've never seen so many and such huge

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

19/20 August

NAA Stillwater - Widmead   1530 - 0800   Warm, with 'milky' high cloud and a full moon - luv-er-ley night to be out!   3 Carp; 11lb 7oz, 8lb 10oz, 8lb 8oz. 3 doz. roach & perch in roughly equal nos. - most of the perch were in the 6-8oz bracket - most of the roach weren't! 1 rudd.   Not fished here for some time - in fact the last time was: http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/index.php?/blog/82/entry-268-2930-august/   This used to be a fantas

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

Zig Rig 19.8.13

7.45 - 8.45pm The aim of the session was simply to catch a carp on a zig rig - something I've never done. My interest in this came from a time when I was trying to catch a carp on the top from what is now really a specimen lake, and they felt all round the dog biscuit to see if there was any suspicious line there. It occurred to me that if I had the bait a foot or two down with the line coming up from a running lead below the carp might come at it from above and not encounter the line. The lake

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

16 August

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   1900 - 2300   Warm, clear evening. 23º->16ºC.   1 Chub 2½lb, 3 chunky Dace & 3 Brownies   Quick return to Monday's venue - this time to accompany Paul who had arrived a couple of hours before me (some of us have to work Fridays!). Thankfully the trotting gear again won the day as ledgering was a dead loss. Paul blanked and I had just one chub rattle to show for my 2 hours on the lead.....

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

12 August

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   1930 - 2345   Cool (down to 10ºC) and clear - perfect evening to be out watching perseids - and with no moon nature put on a stunning display! River down a couple of inches at least on my last visit here (29 July).   3 Barbel; 4lb 10oz, 3lb 15oz, 3lb 9oz. 1 Chub 4lb 5oz. 4 Dace (all chunky ones requiring a net!), 1 Roach and 4 spotties.   Wayhay! So there are still some fish in the Kennet!! Trotted until it was too dark to see

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

Lure fishing for perch 12.8.13

7.15-8.45pm I went back to the spot where I fished yesterday, this time armed with a spring balance in the hope of catching a 'three'. I know lure fishing is meant to be mobile, but for minor health reasons I'm a bit limited how far I can walk, and also on this occasion I wanted to concentrate on this swim.   I started off with the Mepps Firetiger, as yesterday. 'Bang', first cast a nice perch of about 2lbs which got off at the net - drat, hope it won't scare the shoal. Second cast, a smaller

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

Mepps Aglia Firetiger No3 11 August 2013

8.15 to 8.45pm A short session to see if I could catch a perch spinning at a hotspot on the canal. My first cast hit the water with too much of a splash well short of where it was meant to go, but still, just as I was about to finish the retrieve, a good fish was on - about 2lb, but annoyingly I had forgotten my scales. Amazingly I had fish on each of the next 3 casts, one more about 2lb, one a high 'two', and one could well have been a three. I was almost relieved that it wasn't even bigger, a

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

More stalking the forgotten ones.

8th August - Shh So I managed to secure a ticket on the water that featured in my last blog and thought it was about time I christened my new rod so I popped down there to fish the afternoon into the evening. As before I baited a good number of likely looking spots with soaked pellet, corn and a few chops and fished them in rotation judging by what I'd seen. It's seriously exciting stuff, watching these dark, old cheese's feeding, all the time willing them to drift off momentarily so you can

tomhaggett

tomhaggett

Carp on the pin.

Since my last blog I've been back to the little commercial catching the carp on flies a few times. To be honest it's too easy and becomes rather boring after an hour or two. The average size seems to get better the later into the evening it gets. The last session for example produced a fair number of doubles to the 4 of us and one of just over 20 to my mate... quite a scrap on a light fly rod.   Saturday 3rd August - Shhh   An after work trip to the commercial unfortunately got cancelled

tomhaggett

tomhaggett

France 27 July to 4 August 2013

A family holiday in the Vendee region of the west of France. I managed three short sessions on local lakes which had all been created by damming little rivers: Apremont, Jaunee and Gue Gorand.   My aim was to try and make contact with some of the local roach. For some reason I reckon some reasonable sized ones will be found in these lakes - though my reason for thinking so is limited to one not very specific comment on a French angling website. In the first two cases I suspected from my exper

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

Trout on the Kennet

5/8/13   I decided the rain we had yesterday should have put a bit of flow and colour into the river (very little as it happened) so I set off for a few hours on the Kennet. Using typical gear for trout catching on the Kennet (quivertip, pellet hookbait and a small pva of small pellet) it wasn't long until the first showed up at around 1.5lb, it did a very good job of behaving like a barbel hugging the bottom for a few seconds then became airborne and started the acrobatics, a second was unfo

viney

viney

1/2 August

Marsh Farm Fishery, Nr Godalming   1830 - 1100   Hot and Sultry start - car thermo was reading 34ºC when we pulled into the car park. Dawn greeted us with heavy showers and rumbles of thunder - though the cloud cover was good for the fishing!   15 Tench; 9 over 4lbs including 2,5s - biggest 5lb 4oz. 10 Crucians, 5 over 2lb - best 3 went 2lb 14oz and 2 at 2lb 12oz, 5 Roach and 5 Rudd.   Thank goodness for Marsh Farm! After a dismal July (angling wise) it wa

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

1 August

River Kennet - Thatcham   0945 - 1215   Hot and sultry - perfect weather to spend the morning up to your thighs in cool river water!   1 Chub 3lb 9oz, 6 Dace, 2 Roach and 5 brownies - 2 over 1lb.   Had to go to Tone's to pick up bait and permits for this evening - not that I need an excuse to fish here! Nice to see some dace AND roach putting in an appearance.   Chub showed obvious signs of having recently spawned...  

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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