Rivers Kennet & Lambourn, Newbury, Friday 15th January

A different NAA Kennet stretch today, one that I’ve only visited on a guest ticket at a time when the weather was just as bad. The river was running quite fast and being coloured (brown) by excavation works being carried out upstream on another river. This is one venue where wading would be extremely beneficial but as I’ve never seen the river bed let alone trodden on it I decided not to try. I had a couple of casts into the brown water with the new rod and moved to the Lambourn.

As usual this river was in its good Winter condition, very slight colour (it’s usually gin clear) and a healthy flow. Trotted red maggot produced five small grayling and a brownie none of which put a serious bend in the rod.

After talking to the contractors carrying out the Lambourn work for about half an hour I went off to Northcroft to see how the Kennet was looking upstream of the work. It looked very good, a little high but the bottom was still visible down to about 18 inches so definitely worth a go.

The first swim produced an enthusiastic brownie of 2½ lb and on the assumption that any nearby Chub would have noticed the commotion I moved downstream to a swim where half the width of the river was flowing at a much slower rate. Inching a couple of maggots through prompted a bite, the familiar thump thump of a Chub, only a couple of pounds or so but it was pleasing to see that they were feeding….or that particular one was.

No more bites after that and as time was getting on I made my way home.

A great day out getting used to a rod with very different characteristics to my 14 foot Drennan float rod. The Harrison is clearly more powerful and yet still manages to coax relatively small fish into the net without bumping them off. It is heavier than the Drennan (more so than an extra 12 inches should add I think) but my initial concerns when ‘waggling’ in the garden proved unfounded, in use the extra weight isn’t troublesome. It’s early days, I haven’t caught anything big enough to test it yet, but first impressions are good.