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Rusty's Blog

End of Season Countdown - Day 2

River Thames, Pangbourne to Goring, Thursday 10th March 2011   A tough day on the Thames with Steve but in the best tradition of blogs the bad days must get reported along with the good days. Today was a monumental blank. It started quite well, I’d forgotten my camera which all anglers know means you’re going to catch several species all of improbably high weights. Steve, however, had remembered his camera so we were back to square one.   We drove all over the place, either trolling as we
Rusty

Rusty

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Rusty's Blog

End of Season Countdown - Day 1

River Kennet, Newbury, Wednesday 9th March 2011   The start of my end of season finale was to be at a Kennet venue which has reliably produced chub for me in the past, in fact my PB of 5lb 8oz has come from this place so it seemed an ideal venue to try out the cheap Shadowlanda centrepin. Hopefully it would have to deal with more than a few minnows and small grayling.   I wasn’t prepared for what I saw on arrival, I know we’ve had some rain recently but the high water level and fast flow s
Rusty

Rusty

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Rusty's Blog

An unexpected treat

River Kennet, Sunday 6th March 2011   I thought I’d seen the last of this venue for a while, the plan was for Steve to take my place on the final visit of the season but with a couple of days to go I learned that Chris Plumb’s fishing partner wasn’t able to make it (thanks Chris) so that meant we could both go.   We were on a bit of a mission, firstly to visit a special swim and then to catch a pike from it. Steve was going all out; there was no trotting kit in his hands as we yomped from
Rusty

Rusty

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Chris Plumb's Blog

9 March

River Lambourn - Newbury   0630 - 0900   Bright and breezey. AT 8ºC   9 Grayling - most (very) small though I did manage a couple of 'pounders' biggest 1lb 5oz. 2 Roach - both needed the net, best 12oz.   On a late at work so perfect excuse to have a couple of hours on the bank. Grayling not really having it - bright sun and a stiff downstream breeze not helping - bumped more than I landed. Quite a few fingerling fish - obviously had a succesful spawning.
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Chris Plumb's Blog

6 March

Middle Kennet Estate   0830 - 1800   Bright and sunny after an overcast morning. AT 3º->8ºC, quite chilly in a stiff easterly breeze.   6 Chub; Biggest 2, 4lb5oz & 4lb 0oz, 2 Perch; 2lb 14oz & 2lb 7oz. 15 Dace; Biggest 10oz though nearly all the others weren't much smaller. 2 Roach, both small. 10 Brownies to 2½lb.   Typical session wandering the banks searching for fish - walked even further than normal as it was tough going once the sun came o
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Rusty's Blog

Another soaking!

River Kennet, loads of places, weekend of 26th & 27th February 2011   Saturday 26th   With the season coming to an end far too quickly Steve and I decided to implement a plan that we’d been talking about for a while. NAA have an exchange ticket arrangement with Wasing Estates, it allows access to the Kennet upstream of the NAA Aldermarston stretch. Apparently this is predominantly a barbel section but that didn’t stop me figuring that there’s bound to be chub and perch there too. Steve
Rusty

Rusty

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Chris Plumb's Blog

25 February

River Itchen   0830 - 1730   Mild and overcast all day. AT 13ºC Max. River at near normal levels though carrying quite a bit of colour.   22 Grayling; 12 over 1lb, with 6 of those over 2lb - biggest 2lb 7oz. 2 Chub 4lb 3oz, 3lb 8oz.   Thanks to Paul's excellent networking skills (& silver tongue) we had exclusive use of this lovely bit of river for a second time (see blog entry 13/10/08 for the first). Bites at a premium and quite hard work at times -
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Nicholas S' Blog

River Test & LRA - 05-06/02/2011

After receiving the all clear from my girlfriend I set about organising a fishing weekend that I was really looking forward to. Saturday was to be spent on the Little River Avon (LRA) in search of Grayling and the icing on the cake was Sunday where I had been invited down to fish the hallowed waters of the Test. I would be trotting the main river (the last time I fished one of the carriers - see 09/09/2010) in the hope of some of the large Grayling that this stretch (and indeed the whole river)
Nicholas S

Nicholas S

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Rusty's Blog

Everything I enjoy about angling in one day

River Kennet, Sunday 20th February 2011   My last day at this venue for the time being but as it turned out it’s been the best yet.   To do it justice you really need to spend the day roaming the fishery and with last weekend’s weather putting a stop to that I was looking forward to stretching my legs a bit today. I couldn’t, however, resist the temptation to start where I’d caught perch last week so I made that particular swim my first port of call. Not a great plan in terms of roaming, I
Rusty

Rusty

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Chris Plumb's Blog

20 February

Middle Kennet Estate   0900 - 1730   Cool, Overcast and Dry. AT around 5-6ºC all day. River at normal levels and carrying a tinge of colour - all in all neigh on perfect winter conditions!   10 Chub. 8 over a pound, biggest 3; 4lb 5oz, 3lb 14oz, 3lb 5oz. 13 Dace. Most a good size, best 4; 14oz, 11oz 10ozX2. 1 Grayling - 1lb 7oz. 8 Brownies to 2½lb.   Typical day spent wondering the banks with rods in hand. Spent all morning searching out the dace and had c
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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The Flying Tench's Blog

Valentine's Day Lady Hunt

I've been off for 3 months with a back problem. No big deal, but it didn't seem wise to risk it fishing in the cold weather. So the main aim today was to see how the back was, particularly standing for a while, and I decided on a short trip to the Lambourn for Grayling (Walton Way for info of locals).   Locals will know that the EA have done clever stuff heaving in loads of gravel so it's faster and shallower than it was. I find it rather tricky, for example, guessing how far the loose maggot
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Rusty's Blog

What a wet and windy day that was (did ok though)

River Kennet, Sunday 13th February 2011   This was one of those occasions where anticipation of the day out overrides any common sense that the weather forecast might be trying to hammer into your head. You look at the forecast and try to imagine what ‘light rain’ means, then you look at the wind strength and conclude that you can deal with that provided the light rain isn’t happening at the same time. But of course it always does happen at the same time.   It would, however, have taken ga
Rusty

Rusty

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Chris Plumb's Blog

12 February

River Kennet - Newbury   0815 - 1115   Mild and overcast. Battery flat in thermometer so no temps. River up a bit to normal levels and carrying a bit of colour.   1 Barbel; 3lb 14oz. 3 Chub; 3lb 9oz, 3lb 3oz, 2lb 13oz. 2 Perch 1lb 12oz and one just shy of a lb. 2 Dace & 3 Gudgeon.   An 'insurance' session!! Meant to be having a day on the middle Kennet tomorrow - but if the weather forecast is accurate I'll probably get up, check the rain radar and go
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Nicholas S' Blog

Itchen - 29/12/2010

A sortie to the Itchen for a day’s trotting for the Grayling with three friends; Alan, Mark and Ted. The last time I was here the river was quite swollen and coloured so I was relieved to see the river still quite clear despite the recent snow melt. It was lovely to be back - it is always a special days fishing here no matter what the conditions. The fishing itself was a little harder than I expected; perhaps the cold water temperature and snow melt had put the Grayling down. I think I ended th
Nicholas S

Nicholas S

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Nicholas S' Blog

River Wylye - 16/01/2011

With the deluge of rain that persistently fell throughout the week my fishing options for the weekend were pretty limited. In the end I decided to pop down to the Wylye for a day Grayling fishing. Wading isn’t allowed after Christmas so I took my trotting rod as well as my fly rod with the intention to fish for a while initially on the fly before trotting. The river was on a couple of inches up and had a tinge of colour, all in all the conditions looked excellent. I started short nymphing and qu
Nicholas S

Nicholas S

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Chris Plumb's Blog

6 February

Kennet & Avon Canal - Thatcham   0815 - 1215. Overcast, mild and very breezey. WT 49ºF   4 Perch; 3lb exactly, 1lb 10oz and a couple of tiddlers.   Slow morning - 3lber in the 1st 15 minutes. Would have liked to have started ¾hr earlier but had to take Sam into work. Stiff upstream breeze made accurate casting and presentation difficult. (And when I did get it right a ruddy canoeist would come along - had to reel in 37 times for them - yes I counted!)  
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Rusty's Blog

It just wasn't meant to be

River Thames, Saturday 5th February 2011   Today could certainly be described as “a game of two halves”. The first half punctuated by bizarre circumstances which lead to a lost fish and the second by unfortunate circumstances with the same outcome.   We were on the Thames in Steve’s Portabote, the plan for the day was to troll lures along a pretty reliable pike stretch but if that didn’t work out we had lobs, maggots and a float rod to pitch up somewhere and trot baits. An assortment of ve
Rusty

Rusty

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Nicholas S' Blog

River Test - 26/12/2010

Going fishing on Boxing Day when the thermometer is registering -10C really makes you question your sanity. That was exactly the case when Alan and I ventured off in the half light early on Boxing Day. Despite the Siberian conditions we were both very excited. A day Grayling fishing on the Test is always special and although the weather was doing its best to force us indoors, nothing was going to get in the way of us getting to the river! I must admit, when we arrived and got out of the warm car
Nicholas S

Nicholas S

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Rusty's Blog

A bit of prospecting

Rivers Lambourn & Kennet, weekend of 29th & 30th January 2011   A double entry today, the first on the Lambourn giving the Shadowlander centrepin its debut. I won’t say too much about this reel because I’ll be writing a review of it in the near future. It’s agricultural but it worked, as a couple of grayling and brown trout will testify.   The Lambourn looked really good with a healthy amount of water opening up new swims but it was so cold I only lasted just over an hour, not a da
Rusty

Rusty

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Chris Plumb's Blog

28 January

Middle Kennet Estate - Nr Hungerford   0730 - 1715   Cold, mainly overcast with some sunny spells especially after noon. -1ºC->2ºC but felt MUCH colder in a raw NEly wind. River still quite low for late Jan.   42 Grayling; 15 over 1lb - best 3, 1lb11oz, 1lb10oz, 1lb 8oz. 3 Dace; small(ish!), 8 Brownies - biggest 2lb 10oz - but most were parrs, 7 Rainbows to 3¼lb.   A chilly days grayling fishing with Paul. Tried and failed to find any big dace - water l
Chris Plumb

Chris Plumb

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Nicholas S' Blog

Hampshire Avon - 05/12/2010

Another freezing Sunday this time spent on the Hampshire (well strictly speaking the Wiltshire) Avon again in search of the Grayling. Similar to last Sunday the day was a tale of two halves...the morning was spent on the lower end of the fishery and with exceptionally low water we struggled to see let alone catch a single fish.         Vince my fishing partner did well taking a couple of small ones from a pod whilst I was tangled! In the afternoon we explored the upper half which thank
Nicholas S

Nicholas S

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Rusty's Blog

Well....I did catch perch

Speen Moors, Sunday 23rd January 2011   Time spent at this water is never wasted, most clubs have a premier venue and in my opinion this is the one for Newbury Angling Association. Despite that apart from some good perch I haven’t done very well here at all, I’ve only caught two decent sized chub and one of those was on a lobworm when after perch. It doesn’t seem to matter though, just the thought of fishing at Speen fills me with optimism and today was no different. With my new found interes
Rusty

Rusty

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viney's Blog

First fish of the year

Spent the day fishing for carp with a mate, the original plan was to sit and wait for the whole day but after four hours without a touch i went for a wonder and saw some movement on an adjacent lake so we upped and moved, this paid off as within twenty minutes i had a fish on, first fish of the year was a 9lb 10oz common. Both my baits were withing 20 feet of each other tight to an island, one with a lobworm and pva mesh of maggot and the other a white rum soaked redfish boilie tipped with fake
viney

viney

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