9 February
Entry posted by Chris Plumb
694 views
Middle Kennet Estate
0730 - 1630
Light sleet/drizzle ALL day. 2ºC (ALL day). River high but in its banks (just) and with little colour.
5 Chub; 5lb 8oz, 4lb 9oz, 4lb 5oz, 4lb 0oz, 3lb 10oz. 3 Rainbows to 4lb 7oz, 2 Brownies to 2½lb
A day Paul and I had pencilled in for some time (with very light pencil given current conditions!) and the plan had been to invite Chris & Steve and to target monster dace on another stretch of river. Alas permission to fish that bit wasn't granted so we had to 'make do' with this beat. My confidence wasn't high as Paul and I had struggled here once already this season. And this despite the fact the keeper had pointed out a new stretch for us to try. However that didn't dint our collective enthusiasm and I wasn't surprised to see 2 car headlights picking out the track ahead of us when we pulled into the estate - yup Chris (Rusty) and Steve (JV44) had arrived even earlier than us.
Cold sleet and a high river was always going to make for a tough session - however flows were down a bit on December - so Paul and I put the other 2 off the scent and dashed up to the top of the fishery to where we'd had some (actually more than some) good roach last winter.
Alas, it was still tanking through and the 'roach slack' wasn't slack. So we were quickly working our way down the main river - Paul had spotted a nice 'glassy' run which looked like it might contain chub and was soon putting a float through it. I joined him some 50m upstream though my swim was a lot more boily but at least I had a feature to cast to....
Looking upstream from Paul's swim
Paul was trotting maggot - but I had a cunning plan - red/orange sweetcorn - and 2nd trot, 3 kernels on a size 8 was snaffled by my best chub of the season - 5lb 8oz.
Don't I look happy!
Coloured sweetcorn looks a lot like trout eggs
and I reckon chub must see (and eat) a lot - its a bait I have a lot of confidence in on fisheries such as this!
A rainbow soon followed and after Paul bade me farewell to go exploring (still fishless) I had the 4.09 rubber lips - which sicked up a goodly mouthfall of Paul's maggots in my net!
By the time we met up for mid morning coffee I'd added a small brownie and a 4lb rainbow to my tally and Paul had managed to snaffle himself a chub of around 2 ¾lb.
Me & Rusty
After coffee Paul and I went to have a look (and fish) the new bit. I wasn't particularly confident as we'd fished the same stream (although further up) a couple of years ago without success.
The hut is in the middle of the beat - and upstream looked pretty featureless.
And downstream wasn't much better.
Still we had to give it a go so we walked upto the top and spent an hour and a half leap frogging swims - for the grand total of a brownie - each! Lunch was then taken - with Jaq's Roasted Squash, Chilli & Almond Soup getting a big thumbs up from two damp anglers.
So it was back to the main estate - and this time we re-located ourselves to the bottom of the fishery. To a swim featured in APFA - the one where CY poaches a chub from BJ's swim and gets a catapult of maggots for his trouble!
Alas there was no chub here - and by mid afternoon I decided I'd trek back up to the top of the fishery to 'my' chub swim as I figured it would have had a good rest from this morning.
The walk is a long one, about 1½miles - shorter as the crow flies - but I'm not a crow! However it was worth the effort. I bumped into Chris on the way - and even landed a chub for him. And what he didn't tell me was that 'my' swim hadn't had quite the rest I'd thought it had - below is the pic of it from his blog!!!!
Thankfully Chris hadn't fished with magic beans (well kernels) and the last couple of hours saw me catch 3 more chub and another rainbow - before I ran out of bait - I did have another tin - but it was in the car and that was....1½miles away!
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