River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 31st July 2010

A quick return trip to the CSAS stretch of the Kennet ostensibly to hand back my exchange permit ‘borrowed’ last Sunday but in truth I wanted another crack at a couple of swims Mike had shown me last weekend.

I had to buy bait and that meant a quick stop by Thatcham Angling. The proprietor is also the custodian of the exchange permits so I hoped that he didn’t recognise me and demand the permit back there and then. All was well so within 15 minutes I was parked up on my way to the first swim. Déjà vu was the order of this mini session when trot after trot produced either Dace or Gudgeon, I swapped to bread flake and whilst this stopped the silver fish it also stopped any other fish so it was with some frustration that I moved to banker swim number two.

Similar story here I’m afraid, using maggots produced slivers, bread produced nothing and nothing produced any Chub. I alternated between the two for an hour hoping that the constant feeding would attract them but it wasn’t to be and so with only three hours fishing time left I decided to try a new spot.

I’d fished this swim last weekend and it’s a place where the canal overflow joins the river from your right so you can stand at the point and either trot down the opposite river bank or fish directly in front of you where the convergence of water creates a slacker flow. I chose to feed the trotting option whilst fishing the slack and caught numerous Dace and small Roach most of which were attacked by a tiny Pike on the way back. Very entertaining but not what I was after.

Then a surprise when I lifted into what appeared to be another Dace bite, more resistance than usual suggested it was a bigger specimen and I was actually hoping that it would be a Dace. It wasn’t but it was the first Chub(let) of the day;

From there things got better. I was still fishing the slack water so couldn’t really feel the bites as you would holding back in a flow, that made it all the more interesting just relying on watching the float, I could never be sure what was taking the bait. A few minutes later this chap shot off downstream as I lifted into another dipping float. 2lb exactly according to Reuben Heaton’s finest;

And then another which pushed the needle round a further 9oz;

And then they cleared off…………I was back to silvers but Mike had been vindicated and I had caught Chub, not clonkers but respectable sizes.

A word on the RH scales or rather a word on digital v mechanical. I’ve read the various opinions on different threads and tried both now. I have to say that it was nice to know that the mechanicals would work when I needed them and not have to worry about batteries. I know the answer is to keep spare batteries with you but even so I wouldn’t want to mess about changing them at an inconvenient time (which is when they’ll always go flat). There are pros and cons to both but I’m gently swapping camps and leaning towards mechanicals.

Finally I saw a Mink; at least I believe it was a Mink, jet black and about 18 inches long. It was scurrying along the opposite bank only 20ft away completely unaware of my presence. I made the mistake of reaching for the camera at which point it saw me and scurried away.

A great little session, I’ll be swapping permits again in the not too distant future