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Rusty's Blog

A blog by Rusty in General

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Entries in this blog

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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Another catch-up entry

River Thames, everywhere, Sunday 24th October 2010.   Well it seemed like everywhere, fishing from a boat gives you so much freedom that it’s easy to spend a whole day just trundling up and down a river looking for likely spots. That’s how I spent the 24th, I’d snapped up an invitation from Steve to provide Portabote pointy end ballast before he could finish saying ‘Pangbourne’.   We were going to be trolling lures. I’ve never used a lure, I have one in my tackle box but it’s not been in t
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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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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
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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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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
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End of Season Countdown - Day 4

River Itchen, LIF, Saturday 12th March 2011   Day three of the countdown was spent in preparation for the LIF fish-in so not much to report unless you want to read about polishing, lubing and loading Witchers and the domestic activities undertaken as a result of losing Saturday. No? I thought not.   Well what a day, I couldn’t have hoped for better weather and a better turnout. Last year’s event was pretty miserable and I was beginning to think that I was jinxing them (conditions have been
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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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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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Blanked!

Knotts Lake, Friday 29th April 2011   Not much to report I’m afraid. Same swim, same method and similar conditions, maybe more overcast and slightly lower air/water temps than Wednesday but not too much difference and certainly not a rapid change.   I fished from 11:00am to 6:00pm with just one line bite and I think that was caused by a shoal of small rudd which spent the day doing circuits in my swim. Some carp were caught by other anglers but no reports of any tench. I’m wondering whethe
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They can’t all be successes

River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 10th July 2011   In complete contrast to Saturday yesterday turned out to be a dissapointing scrappy days fishing for me. The plan was sound enough, firstly I was going to use up leftover maggots at a good chub swim, a spot which has been noticably devoid of any chub recently and it’s getting a bit worrying. It’s a winter chubbing swim really but I only wanted to catch one or two to prove they were still there. After that I was intending to head for Speen Moors w
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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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We need rain!

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 12th November 2011   A pleasant morning spent trotting for whatever came along at a venue badly in need of some water.   It’s a wading venue and when the river’s at normal levels most of the gravelly sections can be accessed, it’s only the depth of water that restricts certain areas. On this occasion, however, nowhere was inaccessible. Standing in a chub swim which has previously seen water lapping around my bits only resulted in wet knees.   On a more po
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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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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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Internet Angling Club Fish-In

Lower Itchen Fishery, Thursday 16th February 2012   The origins of The Internet Angling Club (IAC) are difficult to establish, there’s little recorded history of the club’s activities and it’s not possible to pin down a ‘base’ on the internet. You might be forgiven for thinking that this is a deliberate ploy in order to hide all sorts of sinister rituals and ceremonies but I’m afraid the truth is a little more mundane, websites need more attention & maintenance than mailing lists do.  
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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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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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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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Got there in the end!

River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 9th February 2013   One of three accounts of the trip   A long awaited visit to this Middle Kennet estate water. Most of the ‘official’ days have been cancelled due to high water levels and I was beginning to wonder whether this season was going to be a total blank as far as this venue is concerned. Paul Goulbourn and Chris Plumb came to the rescue with an invitation via another route (thank you gentlemen), we just had to pray for a relatively dry week. Any ot
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At least I've seen a 'four'

River Kennet and K&A Canal, Newbury, Saturday 16th February 2013   Quite a contrast to last week’s weather, not exactly balmy but no sleet, no rain and air temps threatening double figures…bliss. The venue(s) were to be different as well, not quite as secluded and maybe less exclusive than last week’s but in terms of fish potential the club stretches I was heading for were just as good, perhaps with the exception of dace and roach.   The initial plan was to meet up with Steve on the Lamb
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I thought my plan was infallible

River Kennet and K&A Canal, Newbury, Saturday 2nd March 2013   You’d be forgiven for think that some of these blogs are getting a bit ‘samey’. You’d be right too, one of reasons is that the two venues I’m fishing are quite close together and spending a couple of hours trotting the river before targeting perch prevents me from arriving at the canal too early. Another reason is that the river venue is producing some very nice grayling and dace, I haven’t got the scales or camera out for them
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Left it a bit late

Kennet & Avon Canal, Thatcham, Wednesday 6th March 2013   A short bonus trip courtesy of my boss and the need to use up annual leave before the end of March.   I’m still trying to work out this stretch of the canal. Early January I had a couple of great back to back sessions which produced six perch at an average weight of just under 3lbs. That success was followed by a blank and then a couple of weeks later Chris Plumb caught a monstrous ‘four’ with a 2-15 cameo from me, our only perch
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First time livebaiting

River Thames, Saturday 4th July 2015   This a was an experimental day, another trip to the ‘Drive In’ fishery to try out Kappa’s CD rig or at least my interpretation of it given what I had to hand (see here http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/7445162-perch-livebaiting-rig/).   The paternoster link to the weight sets the presentation depth so I though two feet off bottom in ten feet of water would be a good starting point, no real logic to this just a gut feeling that the nume
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