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Sorry it's a bit late


Rusty

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River Kennet, Sunday 26th February 2012.

 

My second visit to this auspicious location in as many weeks, it gets better, the final visit of the season is next Sunday. I really hope that the 2011/12 finale proves to be a better day than this one because on this occasion a combination of bad luck and ill considered plans (on my part) conspired to make it a bit of a shambles.

 

The day started well enough, we met up with Paul (Chris P’s fishing buddy) at the chosen parking spot. The unloading of cars was interspersed with the usual carefully disguised probing questions which all have the same basic meaning “where are the fish please?” Thinking back it was one way traffic, Paul didn’t seem to be interrogating me at all which is just as well because I wouldn’t have been able to tell him much. Niceties over we went our separate ways, Steve & I to a potential chub swim and Paul to I don’t know where, he vanished as soon as we set off. How did he manage that?

 

Anyway, buoyed by the thoughts of very large chub we yomped the not inconsiderable distance to our first swim. I was quite tired by the time I got there but I put that down to the cold morning and the excessive gear/food that I was carrying, the sun hadn’t defrosted this swim yet and that made the bread mash ritual quite a painful one which only added to my shivers.

 

Steve headed off upstream trotting and I sat it out with the quivertip, nothing doing after half an hour so I dropped down to a swim known as the perch hole where I caught a trout…time to move on again. Next swim was a banker chub spot and I was glad to get there and sit down for a bit, the swim lived up to its name with a chub first cast on the quivertip but this was quickly followed by Biggles the trout so I took that as a hint to stop fishing the swim. I was getting a bit concerned at this point about my lack of energy, the sun was up and about by then so I decided to chill out and soak it up while Steve made his way to the same spot.

 

After a while we met up again and discussed our options, the future lay upstream so I broke out the trotting rod and went in search of dace. Steve settled into a really good looking glide which has been well worth spending time at in the past, I carried on to the shallower sections with the intention of completing a large circuit back to the perch hole. The low water levels shocked me, I wasn’t expecting it to be great but with a bit of ingenuity I could’ve paddled the entire route. I came across a small shoal of dace on a narrow section adjacent to a road, a couple of them looked to be pretty big so I carefully trotted a maggot past them whilst trying to hide myself from view. They must’ve seen me, as the float approach the small group just slide sideways under cover of weed and they weren’t tempted out by my bait. They stayed there for about 15 minutes but always resisted temptation so I bade them farewell and moved on. The deeper pools were proving reliable during my trek, usually trout but occasionally a small chub would show.

 

I got back to the perch hole feeling decidedly the worse for wear and met up with a couple of other members of the party. They were doing well with regular perch to a pound and it was a relief to be able to sit down, watch them and not fish for a while. So what to do for the rest of the afternoon? I didn’t fancy the stop/start roaming approach and yet I wanted to fish the weedrack which would’ve entailed a long walk. I trotted a lob around the pool while I thought about it, a 3-4lb pike interrupted my thoughts as did Steve’s perfectly timed arrival….he unhooked it for me and we slid back an beautifully patterned example.

 

After a short brainstorm the decision was made, we walked back to the cars and drove to the next car park downstream. From there Steve set up at a nearby swim targeting pike & chub and I walked to the weedrack taking as little gear as I needed. Enjoy this short video clip of the swim, there won’t be many more. I learned from one of the Keepers that the rack (possibly the hut too) is due to be demolished this year as it’s now deemed unsafe, a Land Agent conducting a survey has taken a dunking apparently. Well of course it’s unsafe if you decide to walk on it!

 

http://tinyurl.com/7xcjm42

 

The replacement structure will be one of scaffold poles and boards and whilst it will be handy to be able to cross the river the swim will, for me anyway, lose some of its historical charm. Steve and I were thinking of putting the dismantled rack on e-bay if we could get dibs on it, I wonder if it would generate any interest.

 

For my last session of the day I baited up with breadmash downstream of the rack towards the bridge, flake would be on the hook. As with the previous week this approach worked well, bites came to every cast and it was just a case of timing the strike which unfortunately I didn’t manage to do very often. Three chub in the 2-3lb bracket provided some entertainment for the first couple of hours though. Steve then called with a real tale of woe, his sardine had been picked up by a large pike but during the prolonged close quarter fight it had managed to get the braid in its mouth and had bitten off. Having seen the fish Steve estimated it as being a ‘twenty’ but it could have been a ‘fifty’ for all it mattered, the main concern was that it still had the hooks in its mouth. We will have a long shot at a re-capture next week though, we’re planning to fish the same area and if we can muster up four pike setups between us we might get lucky.

 

As for my chubbing activities my inability to hit bites meant that my bread hookbait was running out faster than it should have been. I scaled down the size but ran out as the sixth fish of the afternoon slipped into the net. It was a chub with a distinctive growth on its head and it had graced my net twice before, six captures in all but only four different fish.

 

That was it for me, man-flu was on its way and I was feeling very rough. I had a good stock of lobs and I knew that perch were feeding, I was also in a good spot for the larger specimens but none of that was sufficient to keep me there until dusk, I trudged back to the car with plenty of light left.

 

It’s taken so long to write this blog entry because I just haven’t felt up to it. Most of my working week has been spent at home with my laptop and my GP wasn’t able to identify anything other than my own diagnoses. Last night was my first decent night’s sleep I’ve had in a week and my appetite is making a comeback so with luck I should be ok for the last eight days of the river season, all booked as annual leave.

 

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Glad you are feeling better mate you didn`t look to good on the day ,Still could have been worse it could have been me with manfluvirus from hell :rolleyes:

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