River Kennet - Nr Thatcham

1915 - 2315

Cool, clear evening - though felt quite snug under the trees. River carrying a tinge of colour after recent rains.

3 Barbel; 7lb 4oz, 4lb 13oz, 3lb 10oz. 1 dace, 1 brownie.

This stretch of river is certainly 'saving my bacon' on the barbel front this year - and with Paul getting a brace of 9lbers from here last week there are some bigger ones to go at! As usual I started out with the trotting rod and as usual was fairly quickly into a fish (the 3lber). This is the 6th time in as many weeks I've trotted this swim and it has produced a barbel or a chub (or both!) everytime.

By 2030 I was staring at 2 isotopes in the gloom and it didn't take too long for one of them to hoop round resulting in the 4lber. A repeat performance on the same rod an hour later coincided with the EXACT moment that I started to pour myself a cup of coffee - resulting in most of it ending up in the river - adequate compensation though for a very hard fighting 7lb fish.