River Kennet, Newbury, Sunday 10th July 2011

In complete contrast to Saturday yesterday turned out to be a dissapointing scrappy days fishing for me. The plan was sound enough, firstly I was going to use up leftover maggots at a good chub swim, a spot which has been noticably devoid of any chub recently and it’s getting a bit worrying. It’s a winter chubbing swim really but I only wanted to catch one or two to prove they were still there. After that I was intending to head for Speen Moors with the drop shotting kit.

A last minute check of the club book revealed that Speen was to host a match, it would finish at 3:00pm so the afternoon plans had to be shifted back a couple of hours. I just meant that I’d spend more time outwitting the wiley chub, or as it turned out the not so wiley small dace & roach. Again the swim failed to produce, that’s two visits here now since the season started and not so much as a chub bite. Perhaps they go elsewhere in warmer weather.

So, still with a couple of hours to kill before the match ended I did a bit of shopping and then headed to Speen. I’d changed the drop shotting setup to 20lb braid and a 10lb fluorocarbon leader but was still using an Avon rod. The fluoro & braid might seem a bit heavy but the logic was that both were the same diameter (0.28mm) so should be easier to join, the braid would be out of the water and the fluoro invisible in it so I thought it pontless to buy really low diameter stuff. Come three o’clock I set up in a small weirpool and dropped the rig in, the feel was improved no end and it was easy to tell when I was over doing it and lifting the lead. It was also easy to tell when a fish hit the lure, after only five minutes of working it a ‘savage’ take produced a perch of about 12 ounces, pretty small but caught on drop shotting.

The pool didn’t yield any more fish on that method but trotting a lob did entice a few more smaller perch. I don’t know if that means anything, I’ve only been out a couple of times but on each occasion the first fish to be caught drop shotting was the largest. We’ll see how that pattern develops.

The match weigh-ins were underway so I went to have a nose at the nearest angler’s catch. We got chatting and he turned out to be the NAA Match Secretary, he was in contact with the other anglers and told me of big chub being lost on one particular peg, it was on the way back to the car so I thought I’d stop by and give the ‘pin a twirl. Alas no joy for me but it did look to have potential so a re-visit is on the cards soon.

It was a strange day, the sort where it didn't feel as if I was going to do well but the drop shotting did work and a good looking chub swim was found (ok ok I was told about it). The day did end on a high note though with the smallest pike I’ve ever seen taking a fancy to my maggots;