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Where have all these people come from..

3rd - 5th April - Berkshire Stillwater.   Back out again for two nights with a mate. Knew it'd be busy later in the week due to easter bank holiday, so we arranged to meet down there on the Tuesday. Little did we know that a load of people had taken the full week off so they could fish a long session. Due to the pressure I slotted into a corner swim that controlled its own little bay in the hope that the fish would seek refuge in the quieter areas. The swim used to be full of fallen tree
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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What a difference 10 minutes can make.

Sat 16th Feb 13 - Various stretches of the K&A canal:   Well what a days lure fishing I've had. I had planned to fish somewhere around Newbury for the late morning/afternoon before meeting the old man for the evening on a different stretch of the canal.   I actually ended up spending an hour in the tackle shop nattering, which only gave me an hour or so to explore a few bits around the town. I wandered about, having a flick here and there without anything happening before hooking a b
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Up to date and back on the rivers.

So here we are, it's the middle of February and things have changed quite significantly for me over the past few months. I've finally got myself a very worthwhile job that I hope to stay in long term. I'm now working at the famous Avington Trout Fishery , and am absolutely loving it, depsite the horrendous weather. It's been a long old struggle since achieving my degree in fishery management and aquaculture some 3-4 years ago, but finally my persistence has paid off.   As I said in the last
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Totally unexpected.

5th December - Berkshire Stillwater   So, when I got in the car this morning the temperature gauge read 0.5 degrees... hardly conducive to catching carp but that was what I planned to try my hand at, for a few hours anyway. The plan really, was to lob out a couple of rods while I waited for the light to drop so I could go perching late afternoon - dusk. Never did I actually expect to get a bite on the lake, it was just a better place to waste the day than home.   I arrived just after the d
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tomhaggett

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Three 2's and a 3.

31st March - K&A Canal   Popped back to the canal with the soft plastics tonight. It was rather an impromptu trip after unexpectedly getting off from work early but it was certainly worthwhile.   I thought I'd try another new stretch to prevent it getting a little stale, and to give the other stretches a bit of respite. I made a quick call to see if the old man wanted to join me and 3/4 of an hour later we were tackling up, full of expectation. We fished for an hour or so in the bitin
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They're playing hard to get today..

16th Feb - Canalised stretch of the Kennet and K&A canal   Back to the same stretch again, this time for a day with my Dad as we don't get the chance to fish together as much as we used to. Still fishing on the exchange permit as he's a member of the club controlling the opposite bank to the one I normally fish.   Same routine once again, bait a number of swims and fish them in rotation. Fished all of the swims that have produced up until now without so much as a sniff between us. R
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The desire is well and truly back..

7th Feb 13, canalised stretch of the Kennet.   I finally managed to get back out with the lure rod. Spare time is at a real premium with my new job and juggling my social life and fishing is proving pretty difficult.   I ventured back to the same stretch once again, largely because most other stretches are all but un-fishable due to the flow and water levels. I walked the entire stretch without finding a swim that I could properly work my baits in until coming to the end of the beat wher
tomhaggett

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The coldest feet in the south.

27th Feb - K&A Canal & Avington Trout Fishery.   I'll start with a pic of the most vividly marked perch I've ever seen. My workmate caught it on the fly this afternoon. We were just walking back along the lakes with a customer when I spotted a perch right in close. He grabbed the anglers rod that had an apps bloodworm fly attached. The water is gin clear and as the fish was literally 2 ft from the edge so we could see everything. He dropped the fly in, twitched in once to catch the
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That's more like it

17th October - Berkshire Lake   After last weeks complete and utter fail I had a bee in my bonnet and a score to settle so I popped back to the lake that I'd fished the evening on during my previous outing. I'd been down a couple of evenings previously to prep the spots and hopefully get the fish used to finding my bait in those areas. I'd bought a kilo or two of pellet along in the hope of keeping the fish grubbing around after they'd finished all the boilies off but quickly realised that a
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Should have stayed at home.

Jan 30th - Speen Moors   Decided to have a days piking, and chose Speen as the location due to its fairly good reputation as a pike water and as I wanted to explore a bit more of the stretch.   Fished a number of swims throughout the day but didn't receive any action other than a crayfish that had obviously forgotten how cold it was and decided to come out of his slumber. Ashamed to say I also left early due to the biting wind.. I don't normally feel the cold but this was beyond ridiculou
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Scuppered the opportunity I've been waiting for.,

19th Feb, K&A canal:   I got off work at a decent enough time today so decided to stop off at a new stretch for the witching hour (well, half an hour by the time I arrived). I had a tiny perch after a couple of minutes so at least I knew there where some fish about.   I worked my way up the canal, stopping for a few casts in between the many moored barges, willingly staring at my shad every time it came into my own margin. Then it happened, just as I was about to lift the lure out, r
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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Running around like a headless chicken

As the title suggests, the next couple of sessions were more of a cardio session than a relaxing fishing session. Effort = reward however... unless you're me... then it generally equals a chance that I'll find a way to mess up .   25th July - Berkshire Stillwater   Yet another rushed after work overnighter. The fish have seemed to become rather nomadic recently and I had to settle down for the night without seeing much to go on. Nothing happened during the hours of darkness and once a cou
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Please sir, can I have some more.

So leading on from that guest session I had the carp bug back, good and proper. It had been a good start to the season and I obviously wanted to try and continue that run for as long as possible.   21st April - Berkshire Water   Another day session, this time on the quietest of the "specimen" waters after a baiting up recce a couple of nights previous. I got down nice and early for once, just after first light and amazingly got the rods onto the prebaited spots with only one cast each. Th
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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Please let that swim be free...

11th May - Berkshire Stillwater   Looking back through my pictures I can't believe how much fishing I was getting in over late Spring. Unfortunately the lakes remained mostly closed for that whole period so it was difficult to really make most of the best season of the year.     I remember this session well. The lake was still 3/4 closed with only the same 7 swims open for angling. I had pulled out all the stops to be there this day as the conditions were due to be bang on... big westerl
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More stalking the forgotten ones.

8th August - Shh So I managed to secure a ticket on the water that featured in my last blog and thought it was about time I christened my new rod so I popped down there to fish the afternoon into the evening. As before I baited a good number of likely looking spots with soaked pellet, corn and a few chops and fished them in rotation judging by what I'd seen. It's seriously exciting stuff, watching these dark, old cheese's feeding, all the time willing them to drift off momentarily so you can
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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Just another day in my life..

18th Jan - Speen Moors and the K&A canal.   After rekindling my interest in fishing the rivers and fishing a few sessions on a stretch that I'm familiar with I decided to give Speen a shot. Having read a fair bit about it in Chris and Rusty's respective blogs I decided to take a loaf of bread and wander around to get an idea of the swims etc.   Things didn't start ideally... I'd loaded up with tackle after baiting a few swims and just two steps from the car I slipped and ended up with
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It's been a while...

It seems like ages since I wrote on here so I thought I'd get back up to date. To be honest the reason for not posting has mostly been a run of what I'm calling bad luck but in reality has been due to complete incompetence. I've had only one proper session back on that little stalking pool during which I managed 4 up to 13-14lbs or so. Unfortunately with the nights drawing in there's not enough light for the after work sessions that I was fishing.   As well as that I've squeezed in a co
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I promise I'll stop when everything is up to date...

The next date in my photobucket account seems to be this, though I think I'd sneaked a quick overnighter in on the target water and drawn a blank. I had managed a take at first light that session but unfortunately it shed the hook very early on in the battle. You win some you loose some.   22nd June - Vale Farm   With the warm weather well and truly upon us a mate and I had decided to start venturing over to Vale Farm for a few hours fly fishing after work. It is great fun, if a little ti
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Getting back up to date.

So it's been a ridiculously long time since I last posted in here so, as I've got some more time on my hands with the shorter days, I thought I'd recount a few of the trips I've had between then and now.   April 14th - Berkshire Club Water   So I'll kick it off with a nice day trip I had as a guest to the "other" club in the Berkshire area. A mate of mine was just getting into the fishing on this particular lake and following a visit for a brew and a chat while he was fishing the night bef
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Free panda.

29th March - K&A Canal   First entry for a while, it's all been a bit bleak lately. The couple of half-hearted/hungover sessions I've managed have both drawn blanks, so when I turned up today to find a bloody canoe race in full flow I wasn't exactly hopeful.   It's not really worth fishing when there's 200 competitive, would be sailors bumbling about so I went to the local lakes to waste some time, planning a return in the evening. That didn't exactly go smoothly either... I lost a jac
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Forced further afield by the floods... A blessing in disguise.

31st March - Linch Hill, Willow.   As the title suggests the floods had deemed my club waters unsafe and as a result saw them closed for getting on 4 months... at my favourite time of the year as well!! Anyway, that's another story.   After my success with the leather that I wrote about last week the carp bug was well and truly back, but this time I fancied having a go at something a little bigger. I'd always wanted to fish up at Linch, having read so much about it when it was purely syn
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First time carping since November (I think)

So there I was at work the other day, thinking as I often do about where and when I was next going to fish and it popped into my mind that I still had a new pair of carp rods that I'd bought in December to christen. It just so happened that I finished a bit early that day, so after a little detour I was en route to check out the little lake that I had been stalking in the summer. To be honest with the state of the rivers I highly doubted that I'd be able to get near it but apart from a heavily
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First session on the other target water

27th March - 28th March - Berkshire Stillwater   Decided on a slight change of scenery so visited the other big fish water that the ticket offers. Got down around 10am and had a walk around and a chat with the fellas that had done the night before. It had been fairly quiet and nothing was showing, but I donned my polaroids and set off to find something to go on. I'd done a full lap of the lake, when I arrived back at the car park end and saw a fish ghost past around 2ft under the surface.
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First carp of the year :).

27th-28th Feb - Berkshire Stillwater   I decided against the nights carping last week but after a short, biteless trip on the river last week I decided to have a look at one of the lakes on the way back to the car. Stopped off in a mates swim and chatted away for a couple of hours before deciding I was extremely keen to get the carp gear back out.   After a few texts I arranged to meet a mate down at the lake on Monday morning for a quick 24 hour session. I'd heard that one swim produced
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Finally done it :).

I've finally bettered my perch pb. After a few close shaves recently, and a lot of effort over the past 2 winters I popped out for a couple of hours tonight and managed 6 perch - 3.03, 2.14, 2.07, 1.8 and a couple of small ones. I also lost a decent pike.   Both the 2 bigger fish where caught from the first area I tried. I had the 1.8 first so persevered and had the 3.03 shortly afterwards before moving15 yards down the bank and casting to the same area, hoping the different angle of retr
tomhaggett

tomhaggett

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