14 March
Middle Kennet Estate - Kintbury
0630 - 1830
Bright sunshine, cool (circa 5ºC) with a 'fresh' North-easterly blowing all day - very challenging conditions for trotting a gin clear chalk-stream!!
3 Chub: Biggest 4lb exactly the other 2 were 3lbers. 5 Grayling to 1lb 2oz. 14 Dace; 5 over 8oz best 3; 2X10oz & an 11oz fish. 7 Roach (all small). 10+ brownies to 3lb+.
End of season bash to a lovely part of the world - even if the fishing was a bit challenging at times. Though actually getting on the venue was a challenge!! I'd checked in with the keeper the previous day and agreed where we would park and when - only to find the access gate was still padlocked - alternate access was also barred - and I got stuck in the mud trying to reverse out - not an auspicious start. Eventually we found a gate that was open - which gave us access to completely the other end of the fishery from where Chris (Rusty) and I had intended to start.
As it turned out it was probably for the best - though my first bite of the morning was from a very large rainbow which quickly smashed my light dace tackle but not before trashing the small pool I'd started in.
We both quickly turned our attentions to a couple of couple of known Chub hotspots and both had a brace of fish before the sun was too high in the sky - Rusty getting a fish of 4lb 10oz on ledgered bread whilst both of mine fell to trotted corn.
A call to the keeper to confirm the gate was now open and we were on our way to our first choice swims...
We weren't to stay there very long. Rusty dropped into a lovely looking run which had produced chub for him previously and one of the few swims all day that was aided by the breeze (coz it was at his back). I fished the famous weedstop swim -though the rickety death trap from APFA days has been replaced by this smart looking bridge.
Old and New
I quickly realised that conditions here were hopeless and after an early lunch moved a kilometre upstream to a fast riffle which the keeper said he'd spotted some nice grayling in the summer. Sure enough they were still there and I managed 3 in all from this spot.
By now Rusty had abandoned his chub banker not having had a touch and we were on the move again - to the middle of the fishery! I wanted to check out another chub spot whilst Chris's plan was to drown a worm or two in a spot Paul and I used to call the perch hole. But primarily I wanted to show Chris the carrier that usually produces the big dace.
My Chub spot produced a 3lb chub first cast whilst the perch hole appears to be a misnomer these days! so eventually it was off to explore the dace stream - and we had a pleasant surprise to find the keeper had cleared a lot of the bank making some cracking looking swims accessible for the first time....And so at last we both started catching with a bit more frequency small stuff at first (plus the occasional nuisance trout) - though I was hopeful that the low light levels would entice the bigger fish to come out. Which is just what happened!
Rusty elected to pack up at 5.00pm whilst I was determined to fish till it was properly getting dark - and he'd not even got as far as Waitrose to buy his tea when I was on the phone to tell him I'd just caught an 11oz dace - from one of the new 'cleared' swims too. 4 other good dace all followed in that final half an hour - a nice end to a tough day.....
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