River Kennet - Hambridge

0500 - 0800

Cool, misty start - though quickly warmed up. River at normal levels and carrying a surprising amount of colour - didn't think there would have been much boat traffic to colour it up.

1 Pike; 9lb 6oz, 2 Chub; 3lb 3oz & a pounder. 1 Dace.  2 Brownies  one that must have been close to 2lb and a tiddler.

I had planned an evening session on a stillwater for today - but weather warnings for thunderstorms this evening saw me up at the crack of dawn again and standing up to my thighs in river water  trickling in maggots at 0445 hoping to get a shoal of chub feeding with abandon. Last night when I got my gear ready for today I lobbed a box of plugs into my fishing bag - remembering I often get pike trouble fishing this swim in the summer. Within 10 minutes of starting to fish I was tackling up my feeder rod with one of it's contents. As planned the 15 minute prebaiting resulted in a chub first cast quickly followed by a dace - and as  I lifted it into my hand to unhook a pike jumped clear trying (and failing) to snatch it. 3rd run through with a floating lure and I had a very aggresive take - again just as I was about to lift to recast. A brief but lively battle followed before I had her on the bank - my first deliberately caught Esox in a while (I usually get a few each winter perch fishing!). After all this excitement further action was hard to come by until I eventually snaffled another chub before the swim was again trashed by a couple of splashy trout.