2.45 - 4.20pm

I had a couple of hours on the CSAS stretch of the Kennet 2 days ago. It was good to meet up with Viney, but we both blanked and I am sure part of the reason was water temperature of 6.5degC. In addition it was rather coloured, about 12" visibility.

Today I went to the private weirpool I visited a couple of weeks ago. Water temp was unchanged from 2 days ago, but the colour had dropped out just a little. My plan was to do some more jigging for perch, but a guy in the tackle shop where I bought some heavier jigs mentioned that drop-shotting (at least partly in the flow) was effective in weir pools, and I thought I would try this out for the first half hour. It didn't work at all in the flow, but I caught my first ever fish drop-shotting! 3 perch, best 1lb 11oz. The first two were caught raising and lowering the bait right under the rod top, standing just to the side of where the water poured in. I had a 0.5oz weight, which I found much easier to feel with my slightly stiff spinning rod than the lighter ones I had used previously. The same gold lame plastic worm as last time.

I then tried jigging for half an hour to no avail. A bit like last time, maybe I made a mistake putting the fish back in - scaring the shoal and all that? Then a couple of casts with a Mepps, yielding a small jack. By then my back was aching a bit so I finished ledgering with lobworm which produced another jack, about 2lbs.

A pleasing day. First ever fish drop-shotting, and first ever fish on lures in such cold temperature.