19 January
Entry posted by Chris Plumb
797 views
River Kennet - Nr Newbury
0900 - 1600
Cold, overcast with snow laying to a depth of around 3-4inches. Temps hovering around 0ºC all day with frequent sporadic light snow flurries. No wind so wrapped up warm I was quite toasty all day - was actually rather a nice day to be out. River at near normal winter levels and quite clear. WT 42ºC
17 Chub(!); all over a pound with only 4 under 2¼lb, Biggest 4lb 2oz. Most fish in the 2½-2¾lb bracket. 10 Perch; Biggest 4, 2lb 8oz, 2lb 4oz, 2lb 2oz, 1lb 13oz. 16 Dace. 1 Roach, 2 Gudgeon. 4 Brownies including fish of 5lb 1oz and 4lb 5oz. 3 Rainbows to 2½lb.
A session that defied logic or at least conventional wisdom as to what constitutes 'good angling conditions'. With air temperatures struggling to get above zero and water temperatures continuing to fall - we expected to struggle - how wrong can you be. I suppose we did have an overcast day and the road salt has yet to get into the rivers - but we considered these mere straws to be clutched!
The date had been in Paul and my diaries for some time - we usually try and get a 'special' trip in sometime around my Birthday (which was last weekend). However it was touch and go whether, A we could find a venue that would let us on (or in the case of the Frome was within its banks) and, B we could actually get there. In the end we made the decison at 0700 on the day - and as a concession to the weather opted to arrive and leave in day light. (We usually arrive when it's still too dark to see a float - and leave under the same light conditions!!!!)
Any fears that we had evaporated instantly. Paul probably spent most of the morning rueing his decision to turn down my offer to toss a coin for choice of first swim. We both had in mind where we wanted to start - but Paul said 'you can start there'. (well it is MY birthday!) And what a present the river delivered.
In the first 1½hours of fishing I had 14 chub to 3¼lb plus the two biggest trout. I don't usually weigh the trout but these were 2 impressive fish. At times the fishing took on Mr Castwell proportions - with the float dipping at the same point in the swim every trot - and yet another 2½lb chub was brought to the net (as opposed to a similar sized trout in Skues' fable).
A schooly 2½lber...
By the time Paul joined me for mid-morning coffee, bites were begining to dry up - I was almost thankful!!
We agreed that we'd rest the swim and that Paul would have first dibs to fill his boots in the afternoon - something he did with aplomb - snaffling another 8 fish including one of 5lb 3oz. I joined him right at the end of the day and was allowed to run a float through a few times. Paul had just announced that we hadn't caught a 4 lber today (a less than subtle ruse to draw attention to the fact he'd caught a 5 methinks!) when bang on cue I get one of just that size.
Between the morning and late afternoon chubfests - Both Paul and I had some great predator action. Paul had spent most of the morning catching dace - something I joined in on after my chubby start but after lunch we both decided on seeing if we could get some predators. Paul had his pike gear with him and had seen a fish in the shallows - plus I'd lost a dace to a pike. My target was a perch or two - though that was more in hope than expectation.
Sure enough my perch campaign got off to a slow start - chub in cold conditions is a bit of a staple but perch - I must be mad. These thoughts were going through my head after 15minutes of looking at a stationary float when all of a sudden it bobbed twice and slowly went under. A strike met with the briefest restistance and no lob - crayfish? a perch?. The answer wasn't long in coming as my next bait was snaffled even before the float cocked and a nice perch shot out from the slack into the main current - a nice fish of 2½lbs...
I'd added 3 smaller ones to this when I had a call from Paul. He'd caught a big pike and could I come and take its portrait with its captor. It was a VERY nice pike short and very fat as trout fishery pike often are and at 17lbs exactly a new PB for Paul..
Paul then caught a couple of jacks and after the hiatus I returned to my Perch swim to continue where I'd left off with a couple more 2lb+ fish and half a dozen smaller ones upto 1lb.
4 O'clock and time to pack up as we wanted to be off the country roads while it was still light. Normally I'd be a bit regretfull at leaving a venue such as this while there was still fishable light - Paul too - but today we were well and truely sated!!!!
Paul's 5lber - should be easy to identify again in the future...
Winter Wonderland
-
2
6 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now