River Kennet (& carrier) - Marsh Benham

0900 - 1400

VERY mild (14ºC) and cloudy morning - brightening up for last couple of hours. River still on the low side but up a couple of inches on 3 weeks ago and carrying a bit of colour.

4 Chub: 4lb 1oz, 2lb 2oz and a couple of chublets - one of around a pound the other half that. 1 Bream; 5lb 2oz. 40+ Roach and Dace - mainly roach in an approx ratio of 2-1. Nothing particularly newsworthy - though they weren't tiddlers either - a couple of the dace were over ½lb. 2 Bleak. 2 Brownies - both 2lb+. 1 Rainbow - unweighed but close to 4lb.

A morning on my syndicate stretch - as I reasoned that all the Christmas rain - and the springs bursting on the downs might have wakened the river up! And so it proved - the first 3 fish were the 2 bigger chub and the bream before - alas - the trout turned up to wreck things! Spent a couple of hours on the carrier which produced the 2 smaller chub and most of the roach and dace.

My biggest bream from here.