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Rusty's Blog

A blog by Rusty in General

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Entries in this blog

Swim downgraded to 'has potential'

River Kennet, Saturday 3rd September 2011   Well I had to open my big mouth didn’t I. No sooner had I uttered the words ‘banker swim’ than all barbel vacated that particular stretch of the Kennet in favour of somewhere else.   The day started encouragingly, I got the early start I wanted and arrived just as it was getting light enough to see my way to the swim. Pre-baiting took place while I set up the rod and the first few trots produced a string of nice dace, some chublets and the odd br
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Stillwater piking

Knotts, Wednesday 21st December 2011   Hoorah!! Today is the shortest day and we can now look forward to increasingly light evenings….ok by about 30 seconds a day to begin with but it’s a start…Summer is here!   To celebrate the coming of light we went piking on a stillwater that sees little predator pressure and one that we’ve never seen a pike caught from. Our combined experience of this lake is three visits by me tenching earlier in the year. We had, however, received helpful guidance o
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Still barbelless

River Kennet, Thatcham, Tuesday/Wednesday 19th & 20th June 2012   A combined blog entry for these two trips because the days were remarkably similar, same weather, same swim, same method, same end result!   This is a Thatcham Angling Association venue and it’s the main the reason I joined up. It really is the club’s jewel in the crown and the relationship with the landowner and residents is managed very carefully in order to retain the fishing rights. There are strict rules governing i
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Sorry it's a bit late

River Kennet, Sunday 26th February 2012.   My second visit to this auspicious location in as many weeks, it gets better, the final visit of the season is next Sunday. I really hope that the 2011/12 finale proves to be a better day than this one because on this occasion a combination of bad luck and ill considered plans (on my part) conspired to make it a bit of a shambles.   The day started well enough, we met up with Paul (Chris P’s fishing buddy) at the chosen parking spot. The unloading
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Six perch....17lb 12oz

Ok a bit of a cheat title because it was over two sessions but it was from one swim during consecutive dusk/dawn periods. I had no intention of spending a night by the K&A Canal.   Saturday 5th January, River Kennet, Newbury and the K&A Canal, Thatcham   At last an opportunity to get on the river trotting. The Kennet has been pretty inaccessible with all the rain so the few short sessions I've had have been on the Lambourn catching grayling, nice but I was beginning to miss catching
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Signing off

Well it's been 12 months to the day that I started this blog and I think I've achieved what I set out to do, i.e. provide an insight into the ups and downs of an angler who just enjoys being out and about fishing. Looking back it's interesting to see that this season has been my most successful by far, the biggest chub, perch, barbel, dace and grayling that I've ever caught have all been netted this year. Not too shabby but size of fish caught is only half the story.   Thanks to;   Chris P
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Signing back on again (if that's ok)

Firstly apologies for the interruption in service, I was trying to be too ambitious with writing things up at a time when I’d been out on a number of occasions, I should’ve kept it simple. Secondly I reckon that everything’s getting a bit intense on the main board so I thought I’d retreat to this sleepy backwater again where normal anglers can report on their successes or failures. I like the fact that it’s also a place where some very good anglers report their catches with no fuss so it’s the b
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Second foray and success!

Knotts Lake, Saturday 9th April 2011   A return trip to last week’s venue, no early doors start this time just leisurely bait buying and preparation in the morning and a bimble along the A34 in time for a 10:00am arrival. I was keen not to change too much while I was finding my way with these tench so bait was the same as last week, liquidised bread with hemp and corn as feed and corn hookbait.   The first dilemma was where to fish, the second which method to use. I wanted to float fish th
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Rusty's retrospective

Disruption is the word that springs to mind when I look back over the past season. After a bone dry winter relief (from an angling point of view) came in the form of heavy rain leading up to June 2012, as you would expect this bolstered levels and provided some temporary respite for the struggling Kennet. Only the respite didn’t turn out to be temporary, I kept expecting to see the water drop back during the dry spells but there weren’t many of those for the rest of the season. As a consequence
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Recruiting

River Kennet, Padworth, Friday 27th July 2012   Firstly apologies for not keeping the blog up to date but I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with motorcycling lately. The bike I have isn’t really designed for distance travelling so I’ve been buying panniers and other bits and pieces to try and make it more capable of touring. I’m off to Port Isaac for a week’s holiday shortly and if the weather’s ok I plan to take the bike, it’ll be the first proper tour I’ve done on two wheels despite being a moto
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Recent activities

Rivers Thames and Kennet, Friday 26th to Sunday 28th February 2016   Three consecutive days fishing, each with a different reason for going.   The first day out was Friday, it’d been a chaotic week at work so I took the day off and headed to the Thames for some casual roach fishing. I didn’t want to think about it too much, just take the float rod and fish where I knew they’d be. Water levels were falling and the colour was dropping out so it wouldn’t be long before the roach left the sanctu
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Re-acquaintance

Rivers Lambourn & Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 31st January 2010   Over the past couple of months I’ve been feeling a bit guilty. Since joining NAA I’ve mostly fished their waters whilst falling back on the Lambourn when Kennet conditions were tricky. Today was a similar story only this time I went to a TAA stretch of the Kennet to try a familiar trotting swim.   The snow melt would have been flushed through by now and I was hoping that the relatively light recent rainfall (apart from one n
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Prospecting

Kennet & Avon Canal, Newbury, Saturday 3rd November 2012   A day out looking for perch along a stretch of the canal which has received zero fishing attention from me so far. Having seen elsewhere what constitutes a good perch swim (and what it can hold) and then seen it destroyed I like to think that I’m a bit more clued up on what to look for. The weather forecast suggested I might get a morning of overcast conditions, it’d be cold and breezy but the sun might stay in for a bit....it di
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Predator Surprise

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 1st September 2012   What a strange day out this was, keen to get back into my normal fishing routine I decided to plan ahead and save Saturday for a session wading & trotting. The mild and overcast morning was perfect perch weather so as I tucked into a Sainsbury’s big breakfast I mulled over the options and decided to try for chub and/or barbel. The K&A canal would’ve been the best bet for perch but I didn’t really fancy competing with boats, cyclist
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Predator 2

Kennet & Avon Canal, Sunday 2nd September 2012   Even I can take a hint, for the second day running the weather screamed perch and although I realised this a bit too late for the dawn session (as usual) I had lobs in the fridge and I was in the mood for a walk. Time to explore the canal.   The objective was to try and find a perch swim to replace one that had been decimated by ‘canal improvement’ works earlier in the year. It wasn’t my swim mind, another AN’er had kindly put me onto i
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Pre-season recce

River Kennet, Sunday 8th May 2011   No fishing today but instead I spent a very pleasant morning walking a stretch that I intend to fish once the new season starts. Today re-affirmed my thoughts that I’m a river fisherman at heart, closed season tenching has been great fun and watching a bobbin twitch will always be entertaining but in my mind nothing can beat the sheer pleasure of trotting a float.     Quite a lot was going on when I arrived, damsels were distressed and bees were indu
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Post Christmas perching (postscript)

River Thames, Goring, Thursday 29th December 2011   Just a quickie this one. I popped back to yesterday’s venue (now known to locals as Steve ‘n' Alex’s place) trying the ‘peak time’ trick, i.e. turn up just as the predators were about to feed and then go home an hour later with a fistful of 4lb perch photos. That didn’t happen I’m afraid, the tackle shop had no lobworms and I was down to my last ten rounds of ammo so I had to be conservative with them. As dusk approached I thought a bunch of
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Post Christmas perching

K&A Canal, Monday 26th December 2011   This was just a short morning session along the canal with a pot of lobs and ½ a pint of maggots. My attempt at an ambitious Christmas dinner hadn’t gone well the previous day and whilst I was keen to fish I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time in the kitchen to figure out why my orange sauce didn’t taste of oranges despite being loaded with Cointreau.   In terms of the fishing there’s not much to report. It’s a long stretch and condition
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One more time (but that's it for a while)

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 26th September 2010   Another exasperating day after the chub that appear to be poking their tongues out at me. Well perhaps today wasn’t quite as bad because this time I didn’t see any sign of them in their usual haunt, I’d hatched a plan to get to them as well!   So, enthused by the thought that they must have moved upstream, or at least somewhere more accessible, I headed towards the top of the stretch and got in again. I tried all of the places where I’d e
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Not quite what I expected

River Kennet, Barton Court, Monday 15th November 2010   I feel cheated, for the first time ever I’ve failed to catch a trout at this venue. Towards the end of the day I was trotting weirpools in a desperate attempt to justify my view that they’re a nuisance and easy to catch on anything but a fly, all to no avail. Trout blanking at Barton Court is unforgivable and I hang my head in shame.   The freezing foggy day which greeted me matched the forecast that had suddenly changed from a warm s
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No holiday snaps, just fishing and eating

River Kennet, Speen Moors, Monday 1st October 2012   Eager to continue the chubbing theme I thought I‘d have a good crack at the Kelly Kettle swim today. It’s on my usual circuit at this venue but I don’t often sit it out there for any length of time, today though a concerted effort was in order. Two loaves of bread were stashed in the airing cupboard overnight and in the morning they were suitably dried out for bread mash making.   I won’t dwell on the fishing too much because you’ve read
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No grayling, one roach

River Lambourn, Saturday 1st December 2012   The second visit in a week to this venue, I’m getting a bit fanatical about the roach. Last Sunday was a waste of time with the river being very coloured and flowing like I’ve never seen it before, by Wednesday however the colour had reportedly dropped out and it was fishing very well.   It took a bit of a walk to find them this time but with polaroids donned and the water crystal clear it wasn’t too long before I came across a shoal of redfins.
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No fishing, just some holiday snaps

Some pics of a recent holiday which unfortunately turned out to be rather shorter than I’d planned. Nevertheless the time I spent there was very relaxing and the truncation just means I’ll have to go back in the not too distant future.   Port Isaac, North Cornwall;                 Doc Martin’s cottage;     Arty farty shots;         And a fitting end......the best restaurant in town;  
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My new posh waders

River Kennet, Newbury, Thursday 8th March 2012   A day on the CSAS exchange section of the Kennet, the first time I’ve fished it since tree clearance works and an ideal venue to try out a new pair of waders.   I’ve pushed the boat out and bought a pair of Simms breathable stockingfoot waders and boots. Up until now I’ve been a neoprene chestie fan, they’re cheap and warm in winter so I’ve forgiven their usual limitations of universal sizing and crap wellies being fitted. Neither of the two
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My new camera

River Lambourn and K&A Canal, Saturday 5th November 2011   I’ve bought a new camera, a Nikon Coolpix P7100. It’s a fixed lens camera with the functionality of a DSLR (apparently) but without the bulk. The purchase came about because my faithful old Ixus 700 decided to stop displaying anything on the display, it would still take pictures but I had no idea what it had taken or what the settings were. Photos became a bit of a lottery.   The new Nikon has more dials, knobs and buttons than
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