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Rusty's Blog

A blog by Rusty in General

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Entries in this blog

The Lythe gets its debut

Speen Moors, Saturday 17th December 2011   Today was one of those sessions when it’s good that your fishing partner has a similar angling outlook to you. We’d planned the trip with high hopes that today would be one of those sunny wintery days when just being by the river is good and that this week’s rain had bolstered the Kennet. The first part of this ideal was in jeopardy as I trundled along the A34 with wipers frantically trying to clear the windscreen. I had my fingers crossed that the r
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Gave the 'pins a rest today

Speen Moors, Monday 5th December 2011   Today was probably the best days chubbing I’ve had at this venue, I only caught three fish so that’ll tell you how difficult I’ve found it in the past. Generally I trot maggot but today I thought a static approach might be more productive so it was out with the avon quiver tip rod, bread flake for hookbait and mashed bread as feed.   Three swims were targeted, all were quite a walk apart so pre-baiting wasn’t really possible and as usual I started la
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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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It was a nice walk I suppose

Kennet & Avon Canal (felt like most of it), Saturday 29th October 2011   Well that was a bit of a disappointment, having convinced myself of the merits of dropshotting I felt pretty certain that the method fished with lobs would be a killer for perch on the canal. The forecast was perfect and, crucially, I’d managed to get up early enough to be at my parking spot before first light, well before as it happened.   I sat in the car wondering what to do, it was too dark to fish but I didn’
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Two men (and two dogs) in a boat

River Thames, 6th - 9th October 2011   A bit of a long blog entry this but the trip was such an eventful one I don’t want to miss anything out.   The plan was leave the mooring on the K&A canal at about 9:00am, head towards Reading and turn left onto the Thames at the confluence. Our goal for Thursday was to moor up at Goring-on-Thames some 6 boating hours away, ironically I can drive to Goring in about 45 minutes from my house but that would have been missing the point. We were pretty
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A change of plan produced a little bonus

River Kennet, Newbury, Friday 23rd September 2011   An opportunistic session following POETS day. The pint of maggots in my fridge was beginning to overstay its welcome so I thought it best to donate them to the Kennet on a lovely sunny afternoon. This routine is quite well established now, once I’ve arrived home from work I can be back on the road again within ten minutes, important at this time of year when the evenings are getting shorter. Chub were the target and under normal circumstance
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A double header

River Kennet, Thursday 8th & Friday 9th September 2011   With the lack of fishing in recent weeks I decided to take a couple of days off work and visit some venues which haven’t received much attention from me in the past. I suppose you’d call them barbel venues, they’re certainly popular with the static bait brigade during late afternoon and evenings but rarely do you see a ‘pin user during daylight hours. With little knowledge of either venue these were definitely recce trips and very w
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Back in business

River Kennet, August Bank Holiday Weekend   Friday 26th August 2011   Well I’m mobile again, on doctor’s orders I can drive provided I wear a patch over my left eye, it was very strange at first but I am getting used to it. Great care is needed on roundabouts with filter lanes, I can’t turn my head far enough to look behind me with my right eye (try it) so I rely on my mirrors and having a good look at the other traffic before I enter the roundabout. Anyway all this means I can get to the
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It's true, fishing isn't only about catching fish

River Thames, Abingdon, Saturday 23rd July 2011   About two weeks ago I awoke to find that I’d developed double vision. At first I thought that I’d slept strangely and that it would go away by the time I left for work. It didn’t go away and I had to turn back as driving was out of the question.   A visit to my GP saw me looking at waving fingers, smiling, winking and poking my tongue out to make sure may facial expressions were balanced. My blood pressure was through the roof and before I
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Where's the patent office then?

River Kennet, Saturday 9th July 2011.   A return trip to the swim that caused me so much angst two weeks ago. Again barbel was the target species and from previous experience I knew that this was probably going to be an ‘all or nothing’ trip. I have caught one chub from here but I regard that as a bonus rather than the norm, the trout don’t count.   Making its debut was the prototype bait dispenser, a lazy way to ensure that a regular trickle of hookbait (maggots) was fed into the swim. Fi
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My drop shotting experience

River Kennet, Sunday 3rd July 2011   This weekend I tried a new method of drop shotting for perch and thought you might be interested in how it went. What follows is an account of my first attempt, it is absolutely not a guide so please don’t take this as how it should be done, it’s just my take on things and I had to make some compromises.   From what I’ve read on the forum the theory is that the line is ‘anchored’ to the river bed and the lure is suspended above the lead, a bit like a pa
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The downs & ups of angling

River Kennet, Friday 24th & Saturday 25th June 2011   A couple of sessions to report on, the first a Friday afternoon dash to a good chub swim after spending the day working from home. Newbury is not a good place to be during the rush hour, I’d chosen the back lane route and smiled to myself as I passed over the A34 and noted the huge traffic jam which was being reported on the radio. I felt less smug as I found my own little snarl up on the outskirts of town but it didn’t matter because
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It's a good job size doesn't matter

River Kennet, Speen Moors, Thursday 16th June 2011   It makes a nice change for the opening day not to end in an anti-climax particularly at a venue which has provided me with so many blank days in the two years that I’ve been a member of NAA. Speen was chosen because of its location and the fact that it was very unlikely to be busy, my plan was to fish six specific swims in rotation all of which had been recce’d the week before, if they didn’t produce I could either wander off to other parts
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Wingham Trip

Wingham Fish-in, 21st 22nd & 23rd May 2011   Words that have struck the fear of God into me in the past and I suspect that I’m not the only one. For the past couple of years I’ve shied away from this fish-in, I don’t really have the right tackle/gear and it’s always seemed a daunting prospect. The offers of help and support from members are continually posted on the AN forum though and so this year I decided to give it a go. I’m sure other AN’ers feel the same way as recent events have b
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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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A new Rusty PB

Knotts Lake, Wednesday 27th April 2011   Same venue but a different bank this time (thanks Paul G), I said goodbye to the “cawt anyfink mister” calls from the K&A Canal walkers and pitched up on the other side of the lake quite close to the first swim I’d tried weeks earlier. I could’ve float fished into open water or ledgered close to the overhanging trees, casting was the problem. I could swing a small bomb to the trees but not a float, vegetation behind me prevented an overhead cast at
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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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First foray into tenching

Knotts Lake, Sunday 3rd April 2011   Well here’s something I didn’t think I’d be writing about in the blog, a stillwater session targeting tench. In two seasons NAA membership I’ve visited their lakes just once and that was to test the rod that I refurbished last year. Apart from that I’ve been dedicated river man even to the extent that I stopped fishing during the close season.   Spring and Autumn are my favourite seasons, it seemed churlish to deny myself some of the pleasures the early
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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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
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