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6 August

Willows lake, Thatcham   0530 - 0930   Overcast, clearing to bright sunshine for last hour.   5 Carp; 12lb 9oz, 11lb 2oz, 8lb 11oz, 7lb 2oz, 6lb 13oz.   Another forlorn crucian hunt - but at least at this venue there are some 'easy' carp (too easy!! ) to amuse.   2 smaller fish on float tackle - bigger 3 on floating crust in the margins (ie within 1m of the bank!)   Biggest one:

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

3 August

River Kennet - Newbury   0630 - 0900   Breezy with the odd light shower, river down an inch or two but quite clear.   3 Chub; 1¼lb and a couple of chublets, 2 Perch; 1lb 14oz & a tiddler, 30 Dace, 1 Roach, 2 Gudgeon and a brownie of around a pound.   Pre-Olympics trotting session - hoping for a barbel but more than happy with nearly a fish a chuck - a couple of the dace were real lumps (for dace!). and the perch was a nice bonus too.

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

2 August

Warwicks Water - Thatcham   0530 - 0930   Bright start, soon clouding over - raining as I packed up.   6 Carp: All between 3½ - 6lb. 3 Roach.   It's not many seasons ago when I'd fish this pond with the expectation of half a dozen to a dozen crucians in a morning. More recently the place has suffered from low DO and the fishing has been poor. With water levels healthy again - this was a mission to see if the crucians were still around. The answer to that is yes - as I actually had one ro

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

27/28 July

NAA Stillwater - Widmead   1330 - 0600   Warm and Sultry - fresher in the morning!   8 Carp; Best 8lb 10oz - almost all the others were circa 6lb. 8 Roach, 4 Rudd and a Perch.   Very slow night - especially as neither Paul or I caught anything that we were actually fishing for - tench or bream. Nearly all my fish fell to float fished maggot right under my rod tip - just 2 carp on the method rod. Paul had a solitary blank saving common of around 7lb after 14 hours of fishing!   Paul got

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

25 July 2012: An unlikely hero

Tonights session was organised on fairly short notice and was to see me meeting another AN member, one who I actually met on the river Ribble long before he joined AN. We had spoken about our options and he kindly offered to show me a stretch of a small river which has since made it into my top three locations to fish. It is one of those places where you turn up, take one look and then say to yourself 'there is no way there are fish in here and if they are they will be miniscule'. How wrong I wa

AddictedToScopex

AddictedToScopex

21st July 2012: The After Party

Following my first ever two pound perch and the consistently good weather I was spurred on to have another go on Saturday on the same stretch of canal to see if I could root out another big perch.   This session was to be an early start. I had to be home by 12pm to make sure I could help the wife out with getting things sorted for our daughters christening the following day. I made the decision (despite having been at work all week with 6:30am starts) to get up at 5:30am and head straight do

AddictedToScopex

AddictedToScopex

23 July

River Kennet - Nr Thatcham   1945 - 2345   Clear warm evening. River full and looking in very good nick with a little colour. Shirtsleeves all evening - lovely!!!   1 Barbel; 4lb 14oz. 2 Dace and a spottie of a round ¾lb.   Took the trotting rod - to save Rusty from having to compose another headline - though in truth the dace weren't exactly playing ball either. Not helped by the troot wrecking my first and favourite swim with its airbourne antics. Only bite on the lead came quite late

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

21 July

NAA Stillwater - Widmead   0430 - 0830   Murky low cloud with sun breaking through. 11-14ºC   2 carp; 7lb 3oz, 5lb 13oz. 10 rudd.   Fruitless morning chasing crucians and/or tench. If the rudd didn't nail the bait the commons did - both took an age to land on my float tackle.

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

19th July 2012: Sergeants Ball

Well yesterday saw me with a day off work so what else to do but get myself out of the house and do some fishing. With the rivers still being so high I decided they were going to be a bit of a write off. I decided (as is becoming more and more common) to reach for the lure fishing gear.   The target for the day was going to be the perch on a stretch of canal that I have been trying to master for a while now. It has produced some large pike for me and almost never results in a blank. It is a

AddictedToScopex

AddictedToScopex

Lemington Lakes 17.7.12

On the way back from my Wye trip I called on an old friend in Moreton-in-Marsh, and after an excellent lunch went to try Lemington Lakes, a commercial fishery only a mile away. If nothing else it would be an interesting contrast to the Wye! I had seen a feature on the roach fishing there in an angling mag, though I think a lot of the roach have since been transferred from Westminster Lake to Priory Lake and Abbey Lake. After parking the car the first lake I came to was Abbey, and a carp angler t

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

Wye barbel trip 15/16.7.12

Got to a Guest House in Ross-on-Wye late Sunday afternoon. Nice place, and close to the fishing shop, but this time they moved me up to the attic cos the room originally booked was full of used champagne bottles from a party, I understand. Went out for fish and chips.   Arrived at river, town stretch. Flowing fast and very brown, but nowhere near the top of the banks. Looked a bit formidable to a greenhorn like me. Shall I fish from the top, and then if I get a fish will I be able to jump 6 f

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

16 July

River Kennet - Newbury   2000 - 2330   Breezy with clearing skies after (yet another) rainy day. Min 15ºC - felt very pleasant. River looking in superb nick, fuller than I've seen it for many a summer and running quite clear too.   3 Barbel; 3lb 15oz, 3lb 4oz, 2lb 6oz. 2 Chub 1lb 13oz, 1lb 10oz.   So maybe not the biggest fish in the river but after last Monday's monotony of looking at a stationary quiver tip it was a pleasant change to see the rod rattle (chub) or thump around (barbel).

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

15 July

River Kennet - Thatcham   0645 - 1100   Broken cloud - mainly sunny - makes a change! Temp only upto 15ºC but felt nice to have some sun on my face at last!! River very full but with surprisingly little colour!   1 Chub; 1¾lb, 11 dace - all a 'nice' size, 2 spotties - a par and a fish of around ¾lb.   A morning's trotting in the company of Paul. Barbel as usual were the target but the closest either of us came to one was me being comprehensively smashed by one within 5 minutes of starti

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

8th July 2012 - Club Match 3 - Grand Union Canal, Marsworth

Our (VAC) 2012 club match league is under way again, I fished the first match at Riverside Road but not much to report. I had 2 bream for 4lb 1oz and that put me 6th out of 36. I couldn't make the 2nd match as my car was undergoing repairs, so here we are at the 3rd match.     Only 15 of us on this one, some are not keen on the challenge (or potential long-ish walk) I guess.   I drew peg number 2 which turned out to be an "end peg" for some reason.   I had moored boats opposite,

Maddog

Maddog

9 July

River Kennet, Nr Thatcham   1930 - 2315   Cool, overcast some light drizzle at times - more like October than mid-July!   Blanked!!   Cue another Rusty faux headline!!! Shocked on 2 counts when I arrived. The first was not being able to even get in the car park - full of anglers cars. And the second was the state of the river - really coloured up and tanking through - more like mid-winter condition. I did consider turning around and going elsewhere - a thought that stayed with me all eve

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

9.7.12 Trotting a crease

7-10pm. Went to the town centre (cheap parking as long as you go after 6pm). I really felt like trotting bread for roach, but I had quite a few lobs left over so thought I should use them. So my strategy was to start trotting and feeding maggot, and then put on a bigger hook and fish bread or lob for roach/perch/chub as seemed best.   Joy of joys, where are the swans? I only saw five, even when people were feeding them. Last year it was more like 40! I must say it is a mystery where they h

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

7 July

NAA Stillwater - Widmead.   0400 - 0800   Soggy!! Not actually raining for most of the trip (though tipped it down at the end of it) - but sat under the trees it was drip, drip, drip all morning!!   2 Carp; 7lb 12oz, 5lb15oz. ½doz or so rudd, 1 roach.   Frustrating morning after crucians. Had fishing rolling in my swim 3 or 4 times but the rudd were insatiable, nailing whatever baits I tried. Bigger carp on floating crust.

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

2 July

River Kennet - Newbury   1945 - 0000   Dull, overcast with fine drizzle. Quite 'warm' (15ºC), really felt quite snug under the trees! River looks in fine fettle - though carrying a little colour.   2 Chub 2lb 15oz, 2lb 2oz.   An evening ledgering for barbel, but not disappointed to 'only' get a couple of blank saving, schooly chub. Bigger one first cast - smaller one just as it got properly dark at around 1045pm. A good year for bats - loads and loads of them at dusk!

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

Private weir pools

Mon 2 July 4.30-5.45pm   Well having blanked a couple of times I decided to try something easy, but things didn't look too encouraging with light rain in the morning forecast to get progressively heavier during the day. Also the back was playing up a bit, so I wanted somewhere where I didn't have to walk too far carrying tackle, and could realistically fish for just an hour or so.   I went to 2 private weir pools I am priviledged to be allowed to fish. The first is on what is really a fork

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

1 July

Bucklebury Ponds   1000 - 1300   Breezy, overcast with frequent light showers.   3 Carp; all between 3-4lb. 2 Bream; both circa 2lb. A dozen+ roach and perch - mainly perch plus a roach/bream hybred of around 1lb.   Quick morning visit to my 'local'. Carp were actually a bit of a menace - took an age to land on light tackle and suspect they were bullying the target species (basically anything that wasn't a carp!) off the bait. Also got smashed a couple of times - only had 1½lb hook lengt

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

Another one!

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 30th June 2012   This session was supposed to be a quick couple of hours relaxing in the afternoon sun so I could get back home to cook dinner, watch a movie and then enjoy the trauma of Andy Murray scraping through his tennis match (in typical Brit fashion). Two pints of maggots would be plenty, I’d even have some left for Sunday if the weather was going to hold up.   Same modus operandi as last Sunday, light end tackle for dace and if a barbel came along t

Rusty

Rusty

27 June

Newbury AA Stillwater - Widmead   1930 - 0000   Warm overcast and muggy night - lovely shirt-sleeves evening though needed plenty of DEET - mozzies were in almost plague like swarms! Temp still 16ºC at midnight.   1 Crucian; 3lb 3oz. 1 Tench; 4lb 9oz. 2 carp 6lb 3oz & 6lb 13oz. 1 Rudd.   Mission accomplished - 1st crucian of the summer and it's a real goodun! Things didn't start off quite so well - had the 'smaller' carp practically 1st cast on my floa

Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

Blankety blank

June 4, 18, 25   Just for the record, 3 short dusk sessions. The first on Warwicks Water to try and get some quality roach, the last two on Dobsons to try and connect with the bream. Blank on each occasion apart from a few small roach.   Beautiful evenings, though ............

The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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