We need rain!
River Kennet, Newbury, Saturday 12th November 2011
A pleasant morning spent trotting for whatever came along at a venue badly in need of some water.
It’s a wading venue and when the river’s at normal levels most of the gravelly sections can be accessed, it’s only the depth of water that restricts certain areas. On this occasion, however, nowhere was inaccessible. Standing in a chub swim which has previously seen water lapping around my bits only resulted in wet knees.
On a more positive note once I’d finished fishing it was an ideal opportunity to explore the entire section of river looking for likely fish holding spots and identifying/removing potential snags. Some I couldn’t remove and some I felt would be better left in place, but it was obvious that others had embarked on a similar activity recently. One particular tree at the tail of the section had been severely trimmed and whilst it did provide a better trotting line I doubt that the barbel, chub and perch I’ve seen lurking there would still find it a safe haven.
The fishing was good, one small chub of a pound and a 5 second struggle with another suggested they may have returned but they were the only two chub encounters of the day so the initial optimism faded. In their place though the grayling seem to have appeared, catching the odd stray one used to be a bonus at this venue but now a couple each session is a distinct possibility. Not prolific yet but more so than they used to be.
The roach and dace also seem to be of a better stamp than the last couple of seasons. I caught a couple of roach which were comfortably the size of my hand and numerous dace which I’m sure were a larger average size than last year. I just hope they survive and continue to grow.
Man Flu got the better of me after a couple of hours so I retreated to a warm house, a sofa, a cup of tea, chocolate digestives and a copy of ‘Chasing Dreams’ by Tony Miles. The book hasn’t hooked me yet, the first few chapters have consisted of several accounts of large fish captures and I was hoping it would be more anecdotal but it is early days so I’ll stick with it.
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