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Rusty's Blog

A blog by Rusty in General

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Entries in this blog

A wee dram or two

K&A Canal, Newbury, Sunday 17th February 2013   After Saturday’s drama how could I not revisit the scene? I had plenty of lobs and although the weather wasn’t quite as conducive to perch fishing it was pleasant enough and dusk was sure to come. I was chasing…chasing the fraction of an ounce which prevented Saturday's fish reaching the 3lb mark.   On arrival I met a young lad who told me about a canoe race which had taken place earlier, this might have scattered the fish for a time but I
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A Trip to Blenheim

Blenheim Palace, Friday 5th March 2010   Ok so let’s get the formalities out of the way first of all….we had one bite between us all day and blanked. Four rods were out, two deadbaiting and two float fishing lobs for about 7 hours so you could say that we spent a over a day’s bait time in the water without a fish. The temperature last night was -3 and today was cold and sunny, that’s not an excuse it’s just the reason we didn’t catch anything.   Without any fishy narrative to share I’ll ha
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A Tale of Three Venues

Rivers Kennet & Lambourn, Newbury, Friday 15th January   A different NAA Kennet stretch today, one that I’ve only visited on a guest ticket at a time when the weather was just as bad. The river was running quite fast and being coloured (brown) by excavation works being carried out upstream on another river. This is one venue where wading would be extremely beneficial but as I’ve never seen the river bed let alone trodden on it I decided not to try. I had a couple of casts into the brown w
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A Red Letter ten minutes

River Thames, Sunday 30th August 2015.   What a strange day this was. It started with a chub quest and ended with three perch for 9lb 7oz. Not all of them were mine though and I have to congratulate Steve on taking the laurels today. But first my plan…mashed bread for feed and flake on the hook, arrive sometime between dawn and 10:00am, bag a couple of seven pounders and celebrate with lunch in the pub.   Everything went to plan for once, right up until the point where I got a glimpse of whi
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A quickie session

River Kennet, Thatcham, 13th November 2010   A last minute trip this one, I had to buy bait for Monday’s Barton Court visit so I thought I’d combine that with a quick couple of hours on the CSAS stretch of the Kennet. Mild overcast weather after a cold snap looked promising so with permits exchanged off I went to a swim that Arbocop had shown me during the Summer.   I haven’t actually caught any chub from this spot yet and that miserable record continued today, however, I did catch this ma
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A new season is upon us

A bit of a marathon blog entry this but I always forget how much planning and organisation is needed when you intend to fish several different venues in a short space of time. I haven’t had time to write individual entries. One venue would need a bivvy and the kitchen sink, one would need waders, one maggots, one lobs, one trotting gear, one quivertip rods etc etc. and I still haven’t managed to squeeze in a tenching trip to Marsh Farm or a visit to Speen Moors.   Monday 15th June - River Tham
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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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A new Harrison PB (clutching at straws now)

Knotts Lake, Friday 22nd April 2011   An opportunistic afternoon session in pursuit of tench (again). I was pushed for time so couldn’t prepare the liquidised bread but lobbed the hemp and a couple of tins of corn in the car and headed off.   I still haven’t caught a tench on the lift method so float fishing the margins was plan A. I chose a spot with overhanging trees either side and a depth of about ten foot a couple of rod lengths out. I’d forgotten my thermometer but it was a lovely wa
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A Great Way to End This Season

River Kennet and K&A Canal, Newbury, Sunday 14th March 2010   Since Friday my plans had been a little uncertain, I was intending to solely target Perch but the recce trip to the chosen venue cast doubt on that plan. Then I thought I’d try chubbing on the CSAS stretch but I learned that a match was planned on that water for Sunday so that was out. What to do now?   A quick chat to Steve and the solution was obvious, the suggested venue benefits from being adjacent to a stretch of the K&
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A grand day out

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 19th February 2012   If you haven’t yet read Chris Plumb’s account of his fantastic day I suggest you do before you read this somewhat more humble tale.   A couple of mere mortals presented with an entire lower beat of an iconic fishery with nobody else there, blimey this was a bit daunting. I‘ve been on a few of these days out now and whilst I have some [limited] knowledge of the upper beat I’ve never fished downstream. I was in two minds about it to be hones
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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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A day paddling

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 18th September 2010   Today would be a new experience, a short stretch of the Kennet which I’ve previously only fished from the club bank. The number of these dry land swims is limited, getting in the water opens up more opportunities but I’ve only ever fished there during a strong Winter flow when wading wasn’t that appealing. On one of those occasions JV44 suggested that I came back in Summer to familiarise myself with river bed conditions, that way if the wa
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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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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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A Change of Scenery

River Lambourn, Newbury, Sunday 20 December 2009   Over confidence has a habit of slapping you in the face and today it did just that. I could only spare a few hours out on what was probably going to be my last trip this year, I wanted to catch something and the Lambourn Grayling have been kind to me in the past.   Generally I’ll trot red maggot but today I chose to try the killer bait (according to everybody else) sweetcorn. The EA are working on my favoured Swan stretch so off I went to
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A change of scene (not by much though)

River Kennet, Friday 2nd December 2011   It’s been three weeks since I’ve been fishing, the last time that happened was when I couldn’t drive back in the summer…..I was beginning to get a hankering again.   Steve and I met up at Happy Tony’s Angling Emporium as he was unlocking the shop. Bait bought we thought about where to go, the options were numerous, any NAA stretch of the Kennet was within easy reach as was the Lambourn but eventually we decided upon exchanging our tickets for a sess
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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 chance to try some new kit

River Kennet, Thatcham, Friday 10th September 2010   I’d been mulling over the idea of an evening session all week. I don’t generally fish evenings because there always seems to be stuff to do in the house after work, dinner, chores etc. Today was different though, I was working from home and my evening was free so it was an ideal opportunity to try out a couple of recent acquisitions, a new reel and some Power Pro braid.   The venue was carefully selected, I’d be wading mid river and trot
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A Bittersweet day (more bitter than sweet)

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 23rd October 2010   What could have been a brilliant session today actually turned out to be a bit of a disaster.   I met up with Steve at a civilised 10:30 for a spot of chub trotting. Steve waded and I stayed on the bank further upstream where I put a concerted effort into a swim which should produce but hasn’t for me yet. It’s where the barbellers fish but it’s also a nice near bank trot for maybe 30 yards until a fallen tree blocks the way. I’ve never re
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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
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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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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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A Barbel at last!

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 11th October 2015   Following on from what was a very successful social event at Rutland (but somewhat lacking in terms of my Zander return) I wanted to get back into familiar territory so with bleary eyes after a long Saturday morning journey back from Oakham I dragged myself off to the tackle shop for maggots and lobworms. The plan was to fully explore the Newbury town centre stretch on Sunday.   I’d tried some of it the weekend before with some success, a chu
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A bamboo PB!

NAA Stillwater, Warwicks, Sunday 17th May 2015.   Another foray into fishing lakes. I had planned to visit the vintage tackle fair at Redditch today but a change of plan meant that I was in Devon over the weekend and couldn’t really arrange things to be at the fair early. Probably just as well, last time I went to one of these events (my first) I took plastic naively thinking that I’d be able to buy stuff, no chance, it was cash or no sale. So this time I had cash and it was burning a big hole
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'Poaching' within the Law

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 13th February 2010   Spent a pleasant few hours on the CSAS stretch of the Kennet today. NAA do an exchange ticket and so with morning shopping quickly dispatched I thought I’d give it a try.   It was a bit of a last minute decision so I could only get there for 11 o’clock but what a wonderful stretch of the Kennet it is. Regular readers won’t be surprised to hear that I blanked (anyone see a pattern developing yet?) but it was great fun exploring a new bit
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