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Chris Plumb

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River Kennet - Hambridge

1000 - 1300

Rain (again!?) steady and persistent but never particularly heavy - thankfully, as I was standing out in it for 3 hours. Cool (only 11ºC), quite calm. River was in great nick - higher than normal for June and with a little less colour than last Thursday.

2 Chub; 5lb 2oz and one of around a pound (unweighed). 18 Dace & 9 Roach - nothing to warrant weighing. 1 Grayling c10oz, 2 Gudgeon (hooray!) & 2 Brownies both over 1lb but under 2lb.

Apart from the rain, conditions looked spot on - and as usual I started by just trickling in maggot for the first 10+ mins - supremely confident that my first trot through would produce a  good fish.  However, first cast produced the bigger trout (around 1½lb) - usually the kiss of death for their swim trashing abilities! Thankfully I managed to bully it away from the 'chub zone' before its first leap - but still thought that my chances had been blown. I needn't have worried - after slipping the brownie back - my float buried on the second run through and a strike just meet solid resistance. This time the perogative was to steer the fish away from the danger of tree roots on the far bank and once I had it in open water the battle was won. I waited until the last week of the season last year to get a 5lb+ chub - chuffed to get one in the opening week this season!

 

Chub 5lb 2oz.jpg

Edited by Chris Plumb

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Naw - couldn't be bothered to wade back to the bank to get my camera - here's one from the same venue from a few years ago...

Gudgeon.jpg

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Up until a couple of season ago around a couple of dozen of us did a species race each season - so I have a number of pics of mini-species in my archives. Hambridge is a great place for variety. I've had 17 different species from there over the years - once had 12 in a single day!

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Good Lord. 12!?

Hmm,

1 - barbel
2 - gudgeon
3 - roach
4 - dace
5 - chub
6 - perch
7 - pike
8 - bleak
9 - minnow
10 - grayling
11 - ruffe

11 & 12 - stone loach? grouper? ichthyosaurus?

This reminded me - ever caught an eel on NAA waters? I used to get them on the Thames as a teen. My PB was about 2lbs - only it was dead! (I snagged a birdnest of lost line on which a bloomin' great deceased eel was hooked on the end)

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Diary entry for 18/09/04. Records:

1) Gudgeon 13

2) Dace 32

3) Roach 15

4) Chub 2 (biggest 3lb 6oz)

5) Perch 7 (biggest 1lb 7oz)

6) Bleak 2

7) Pike 2 (biggest 8lb 6oz)

8 ) Bream 1 (2lb 13oz)

9) Barbel 1 (2lb 14oz)

10) Brown Trout 4

11) Grayling 2

12) Minnows lots

The other 5 species i've caught there in the past - but not on this day! 

Bullheads

Rainbow trout

Salmon Parr

Rudd

Tench

These last 2 have only turned up once each in 40 years of fishing the venue (escapees from the canal after flooding perhaps?). The place was (and still is in many respects) a veritable aquarium!

 

And no - never caught an eel from NAA water - in fact only once caught an eel from the Kennet system a bootlace on 14/3/91 from Osier Bed Stream at Theale!

Edited by Chris Plumb
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Ah, somehow I forgot to include the Brownies - but then I didn't think you counted them!

What a day that was...13 gudgeon!

In that hot summer of '76, I fished the Thames at Kingston as a thirteen year old. We used to chuck a coffin lead out, then whenever a yellow car drove over the bridge, took that as a cue to wind in. You were pretty much guaranteed to have either a gudgeon or a ruffe (we called them 'pope') on the end. The current was strong so you never saw a bite. Kingston was also the location for catching that dead eel, meeting the paedophile and me hooking the Kingston Royal, a large passenger boat and, on another occasion, my finger, resulting in a casualty visit when Dad picked us up.. Not everything is worse now!

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