The Newbury & Port Talbot Blanker

Actually I was upstream of you!

Ah, that would explain it. You were catching all my fish! 

Hi Bayleaf

Interesting to hear you had a crack at link-ledgered cheesepaste. Having talked to one or two Thames anglers I intend to give it a try too, I'll let you know how I get on. It's interesting, successful chub anglers use and swear by different methods. Some invariably float-fish. Others feeder fish, often with bread. Others insist that chub feel the resistance of a feeder, and link ledger, often with cheese paste. Each to his own, I guess.

It seems that chub will devour anything - apart from when I fish for them! 
Given that they're so flighty, I find it odd to read in the angling press that crashing a feeder in is a successful tactic. I'm off to the Kennet tomorrow for another bash. My cheesepaste has matured another week in the meantime, so who could possibly resist? I plan to trot maggots first and keep mobile. Let's wish each other luck, and compare notes here in due course!

Good idea, though may be a few weeks for me. Did I ever mention the little side stream that comes off the Kennet on the north side of the river just below the A339? In the little weir pool where it starts I never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bite from a chub, though admittedly that was in summer using meat. Then 100 yds further down, fishing from the south side of the stream, there's a pool. One winter a shoal of 1lb roach took up residence there, but there were also chub out towards the streamy water.

That's interesting! I live about 400 yards from that weir pool and saw someone fishing there for the first time last week. I've fished the swift section that flows behind the old football ground, but was put off by the can-swigging ne'er-do-wells who were loitering nearby.  BTW my fairly short stint with cheesepaste today accounted for one smallish trout - who was a welcome visitor as it was a poor day.

Was it such a poor day? Conditions were terrible, most people would have blanked, you moved on in your chub hunt with a modest chub banked and 3 good ones hooked (I'm assuming they were chub) and the consolatory trout and bits and bobs. As winter comes on it seems to me we have to be kind to ourselves in our expectations. In my case my last 4 trips weren't blanks, they were valuable experiments! 

I forgot to say, unless things have changed, you can only fish that little weir pool for 20 minutes or so. My experience was that I'd get a couple of bites very quickly, would land them or lose them, and then the remaining fish would be spooked and I'd need to move on. It's quite shallow there. In the conditions I fished the chub were at the tail of the weir pool. So I used relatively big baits. If I'd used maggot and caught small fish that might have spooked them earlier. I fished from the south bank.