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Rusty's Blog

A blog by Rusty in General

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Entries in this blog

A big fat blank!

Speen Moors, Monday 2nd January 2012   Nothing to report fish wise but at least it saved me the tiresome task of uploading pics to photobucket. It used to be really quick and easy but these days it seems to take an age and more often than not it crashes before all pics have been uploaded.   Anyway, the banker swims didn’t produce and neither did a cracking looking new spot which caught my eye a couple of weeks back, I was ledgering bread again with the ‘pin and a couple of SSG for weight.
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Lost for words

River Thames, Thursday 26th January 2012   A short late afternoon session only possible because the training I’d undertaken earlier in the day had finished sooner than anticipated. The course content was learning how to drive a 4x4 vehicle off road and the venue was Salisbury Plain so you can imagine that it had already been a really enjoyable day.   The plan was to ledger breadflake into dark for chub but I could get to the river with an hour of light left and so I decided to take the tro
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It's been a while but re-aquainted at last

River Kennet, Thatcham, Sunday 27th June 2010   Well this was an unexpected bonus, I didn’t think I’d be able to fish for at least a month but circumstances conspired to make this short session available to me.   The problem was of course deciding on whether to watch the footie or go fishing, I’m not really a footie fan but I do tend to watch significant England games. On this occasion, however, they were going to have to do without my support, I’d bought maggots yesterday just in case and
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A couple of fives

River Kennet, Sunday 15th January 2012   What a strange day this was, a pretty good one in terms of chub average weight but it was a day of two ends rather than of two halves.   My plan was to pitch up quiver tipping for the morning with breadmash for feed and flake on the hook, the afternoon was to be spent trotting a section I haven’t yet fished. I did wonder when I arrived at my chosen swim whether I’d be able to drag myself away later in the day but that decision could wait.    
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After the Lord Mayor's Show

River Thames, Saturday 28th January 2012   “One bite is all it takes”; “I missed a couple of bites”   How often have you read those words in any angler’s account of his fishing day? I’ve written the latter a few times and glibly dismissed them as lost opportunities but driving home after today’s blank I thought about it a bit more. On Thursday I had just one bite and as a result I could take photos of a monstrous chub, everything was good in the world. Tonight I had two bites and didn’t c
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A big fat non-blank!

River Lambourn, Saturday 7th January 2012   Probably my best ever session at this venue in terms of numbers of fish caught. I’ve managed larger grayling elsewhere on this river but can’t remember the last time I accounted for 30 fish.   Usual MO, start at the top and work downstream expecting to catch a couple here and there. That’s how it panned out until I got towards the end of the first section where I found a slack water area right next to a fast glide, it was packed with grayling and
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Barton Court Trip

River Kennet, Barton Court, Friday 13th January 2012   My annual pilgrimage to the venue where I first used a ‘pin and where I first untangled a birdsnest, the two events occurred within seconds of each other if I remember correctly. That was about three years ago and at that time the fishery was still producing a good selection of coarse fish but since then most of my visits have resulted in trout getting to the bait first. When booking the day I was told that the grayling and roach were mak
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First chub (and perch) of the year

River Kennet, Brimpton, Sunday 8th January 2012   Bit of a backup session this, plans to fish another venue were postponed until this coming Sunday so I needed somewhere else to go. Disappointing but not all bad news, it’s only a few fences, signs and a river keeper’s shotgun which separate that bit of the Kennet from the other sections after all.   Trotting maggot for chub would be the plan and the swim was to be at the far end of the fishery, a spot where I’d caught previously (the only
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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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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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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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Another potential swim (I'm getting the hang of this)

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 12th September 2010   Another trip to the venue that was the reason for my joining NAA and the reason for being so disappointed last Autumn. Sorry if this is getting a bit boring but I’m fishing it a lot during the warmer months so that I can explore as much as possible in friendly weather conditions. They’re not always ideal fishing conditions, the fish don’t seem to be taking any notice of that though. My success has been modest in terms of fish caught , howeve
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The Best Laid Plans etc

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 5th September 2010   Having found a couple of decent perch swims and fished them out of ‘prime time’ I decided to see how they faired during the productive dawn/dusk times of day. My wife was visiting friends during Saturday and staying over so Sunday at dawn was the preferred option.   Two swims were to be fished, the first where I’d caught a 2lb 8oz perch last week and the second where a 2lb 12oz specimen had graced may landing net a couple of weeks earlier.
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Mission Accomplished

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 31st July 2010   A quick return trip to the CSAS stretch of the Kennet ostensibly to hand back my exchange permit ‘borrowed’ last Sunday but in truth I wanted another crack at a couple of swims Mike had shown me last weekend.   I had to buy bait and that meant a quick stop by Thatcham Angling. The proprietor is also the custodian of the exchange permits so I hoped that he didn’t recognise me and demand the permit back there and then. All was well so within 1
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Lots of Grayling

River Lambourn, Saturday 13th October 2012.   One of those days when you wonder why the whole world doesn’t take up angling as a pastime, we didn’t break any records but had such an enjoyable day fishing it almost seemed unfair.   The venue was the Lambourn our local grayling river, the anglers were myself, Steve and Keith. We met Keith at Goring (his chosen place of retirement) about a year ago. He’s a Yorkshireman and likes catching bream but despite that he’s an all round good bloke and
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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 6

River Kennet, Speen Moors, Monday 14th March 2011   Sorry for the late entry but I’ve had a busy couple of weeks and the blog has had to take a back seat. No season, however, is complete without a last day account of events and so with day 5 spent recovering from the LIF outing here’s how the final day went.   Early and frosty are two words which immediately spring to mind. This was one of my few attempts at fishing for perch at the right time of day but scraping the car in the dark was no
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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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Barton Court Trip

River Kennet, Barton Court, Wednesday 14th November 2012   My second trip this year, the last was in January when the water levels were very low and I was concerned about the fishery's future given that spring and summer were to follow. I needn’t have worried, levels are now at the highest I’ve ever seen (apart from when the fishery flooded) and it’s not a mud coloured mess either, it was in perfect condition. The sluices were sluicing and the network of carriers and side streams were all flo
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A day chubbing

River Kennet, Speen Moors, Saturday 22nd September 2012 (afternoon shift)   It struck me recently that I hadn’t caught a decent chub for a good while. In such circumstances I generally fall back to quivertipping bread flake in a couple of reliable swims, on this occasion though I wanted to try somewhere I’d been thinking about for some time. The back end of Speen Moors fishery is a slow stretch, it’s full of fallen trees and looks very chubby but it’s not fished very much probably because it
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Would Sir Like his Hat Well Done or Medium?

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 25th July 2010   My first session in exactly 4 weeks so Saturday evening was spent preparing kit, lubing ’pins, buying bait, making sarnies and all the other stuff which would never get done if left until the last minute. It was to be a dawn raid, I was fishing with Mike (Arbocop) and he would have to work Sunday afternoon so the only way to get a decent session in was to start early. That meant a 3:30am alarm.   The venue was the CSAS stretch of the Kennet av
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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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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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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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