River Lambourn, Newbury, Monday 28 December 2009

A bonus trip out on account of brownie points gained (so far) over the Christmas period. Arrived about 10:00am so as to avoid rod rings icing, they still did though until about 10:30am when the sun got its act together.

Sweetcorn was the bait again but this time it was an altogether more successful session. This bait has at last proved to me that Grayling are fond of it, less pleasing is that Trout like it too but right now it’s a case of any port in a storm so the two pound brownie was a welcome addition to the tally.

Five Grayling, four of which were about the half pound mark and one tiddler fell for the green giant. Two fish were caught along the Church section which is already providing some fantastic varied trotting conditions. Most pleasing event of the day was identifying a ‘dead cert’ swim along the re-worked section…and then losing a fish from it.

It got too busy at about 2:00pm and so that’s when I called it a day. There were about ten anglers there by that time and so it wasn’t really possible to go looking for the fish. The usual tactics at this venue are catch a couple and move, the disturbance caused by playing a fish invariably spooks the rest. I bumped into Chris Plumb & Paul just before I left, they’d come from Speen and took one look at the number of anglers and moved on.

Kit tested today was the Fladden stalking belt, peacock hand warmers and Barbour Bushman hat. The hat was great keeping my head very warm (something my hair used to do), the hand warmers did their job well and are still going as I write some nine hours after ignition. The stalking belt enabled me to travel without a bag, just a rod and net, brilliant for short sessions but I think on a longer session when I’d need to eat properly I will have to take a small bag for the stove and food.