River Kennet, Padworth, Friday 27th July 2012

Firstly apologies for not keeping the blog up to date but I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with motorcycling lately. The bike I have isn’t really designed for distance travelling so I’ve been buying panniers and other bits and pieces to try and make it more capable of touring. I’m off to Port Isaac for a week’s holiday shortly and if the weather’s ok I plan to take the bike, it’ll be the first proper tour I’ve done on two wheels despite being a motorcyclist for the past 36 years.

So back to the fishing, to be honest I haven’t been out a great deal in recent weeks mostly grabbing a couple of hours here and there on the Thames with Steve. Apart from one occasion when I caught a Thames tench on lobs intended for perch (Steve still has the pic I think) not much has been blog worthy; they’ve been enjoyable sessions though and provide a real alternative to the Kennet. On the Thames you never know what’s going to come along; you can be hauling out silvers one minute and then be taken water skiing the next.

But the Kennet will always be my favoured river and when I was provided with the opportunity to introduce another angler to the delights of running water I jumped at the chance. Paul works with me for a renewable energy company based in Swindon, I help build the wind farms and he helps control them when they’re up and running. He’s a keen angler and has lived in Wantage for most of his life so is a mine of information about how things have changed over the years. He has, however, never fished a river with a centrepin…I could help him there.

The venue was to be TAA’s Padworth stretch, a venue popular with static bait barbellers but equally enjoyable for trotting provided you’re prepared to get in the water. Steve kindly lent Paul his waders and bait smock for the day so that sorted the paddling, in his inimitable fashion Tony at Thatcham Angling provided the guest ticket and maggots, we were all set.

The brief was that we’d most likely catch dace & roach on the float with a [very] outside chance of a barbel or chub. This isn’t a venue that I’ve done well at for the latter two species but it is a beautiful place to be a on a warm Summer’s day, perhaps not so great if you’re wearing neoprene waders as Paul was but if they kept him dry……

Both my rods are set up with the Lythe & Witcher ‘pins so it seemed easiest just to take those and entrust Paul with the Harrison/Lythe combination, he wilted a bit when I thrust the rod into his hand and told him that the reel would take three years to replace but that may have been because the sun was getting up and the neoprenes were taking effect. Whatever we proceeded to have a fantastic days fishing, Paul was obviously a very competent angler and took to mid-water trotting like a duck to errrr…water. As suspected silvers were the order of the day but a lot of decent dace were amongst them, it was constant action in most of the swims we tried. Ironically the trout were noticeable by their absence, on the one occasion that I wanted them to show up and put a real bend in Paul’s rod they were nowhere to be seen.

Never mind, after nine hours of trotting it was me who called time. I had the posh breathable waders but was knackered, Paul had the searingly hot neoprenes and wanted to carry on, it was only the maggot count which put a stop to proceedings, five pints were feeding Kennet fish somewhere downsteam.

Paul having a thoroughly good time and probably surfing e-bay for a centrepin as we speak.