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Chris Plumb

Anglers' Net Contributor
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Blog Comments posted by Chris Plumb

  1. Ha ha - that'll learn yer not to weigh in!  I don't match fish - though many, many moons ago I was in a school fishing team for a match against another local school. We were taken to some HITG in Hertfordshire on a baking July day. Pretty much everybody blanked - I do recall a solitary tench won the match - I managed a miniscule perch (on bread flake!) which was so small I was worried it would get through the holes in the keep net I'd been loaned for the day.  I popped into a bait tin - and had to be persuaded to 'weigh' it in. It proved to be the only other fish caught on that hot afternoon - and my prize for 2nd place was a collapsible fishing chair and (somewhat ironically) a landing net!! The chair was rubbish and I never used it - but the landing net lasted me for years - best perch I ever caught!

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  2. Martin - that IS the weirpool - the only one on the fishery - the one that's had barbed wire erected to stop people swimming in it (in the guise of a dodgy wall!), the one where the opening scenes to A Passion For Angling were filmed (Midwinter Madness episode!)

    The roach was nice but it was nice to see there are some big chub still around - especially as there looked like otter spraints on PD plus the remains of some chewed up crayfish!

    The concrete bridge that I can't get to anymore (from the north or south) can be found at keep.trips.privately (W3W) which I think is rather appropriate!

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  3. Hopefully the rainbow YOU caught was a triploid! Farmed rainbows are usually triploid - bred with an extra set of chromosomes to make them sterile - so as to prevent natural populations getting established of an introduced invasive species! (They also put on weight quicker if sterile) However I don't think its 100% foolproof - I caught a rainbow from my syndicate stretch a couple of years ago which emptied its ovaries of eggs in the landing net - something that shouldn't have been possible if it was sterile!

    https://www.gethooked.co.uk/game/sexy_trout

     

  4. And it gets worse! I had a similar conversation with a trapper some years ago (he was at Rainsford on the TAA ticket). He was trapping c30000 a season - circa ¾tonne of the blighters. However he noticed that his catch numbers were actually going UP year on year from the same stretches of river - though the average size was coming down (so overall tonnage staying about the same!)  - probably due to the high levels of cannibalism signals have (well they haven't got anything else to eat but themselves!) The only upside is that perch & chub sizes have increased in recent years due to this new high protien diet but there's been precious little in the way of smaller fish coming through - which is whay it's been pleasing to see quite a few 12-16oz chub appearing in my landing net this summer.....

  5. Should have gone to Speen - it fished very well in low water last week for me. Brimpton needs some more water - its a bit peggy at the best of times so I'd have been a bit more mobile and would probably walked the length of the fishery dropping into every swim I could get into. I only use bait & wait where I have a reasonable expectation of a chub (based on previous catches) and I use it to try and winkle out more than one from a swim (will often loose feed whilst playing a fish!) At least you didn't get any nuisance trout!

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  6. They are one of my favourite species hence why I fish the Itchen - and join Dorchester &DAS each winter to fish the Dorset Frome. On the Kennet they only really become a worthwhile target upstream of Barton Court but I don't have deep enough pockets or know the right people any more to fish these waters now a days. Used to fish Denford in the winter but the old boy, Mr Wilson died and it was taken over my Avington who put a stop to the winter coarse fishing (twas also home to some SPECTACULAR dace when conditions were right (my PB Dace 1-02 and Roach 2-11 were from here - both caught the same day!) Whilst there may be some very limited recruitment locally I think most of the Grayling that get caught downstream of Ham Bridge have come out of the Lambourn which is a VERY reliable venue for the ladies - and until they buggered about with the water levels at the bottom of the river was a good prospect for a 2lber (my best Lambourn lady was 2-03) and some half decent roach (which ARE still around)...

  7. Wow - well done - I've caught a 'handful' of Kennet 2lbers over the years but nothing from the lower river (Ie below A34 Newbury bypass). My best Kennet fish is 2lb 5oz which took 3 grains of trotted red corn on a size 8 - meant for chub!. Since the mid 90s I've travelled a bit further afar in search of big ladies - my PB stands at 2-15 from the Itchen in 2001 - been trying to get a 3lber ever since!! I think some grayling were stocked at Rainsford a few years ago - so your Brimpton 2 'could' be a survivor of those...

  8. Must admit chub were hoped for/expected but not a sniff of one. I'll be back with the ledgering rods before the end of autumn - does need a bit of flow. I put this pic on the NAA facebook page and it seems that RDAA & Wasing have put in grayling in the last couple of years - so these would appear to be survivors of these stockings.

  9. I think low light levels definitely help - my hooklengths would be deemed a little too 'agricultural' by some (4.9 or 6.6lb) but I'd rather land a fish than lose it in the fast current - though suspect in bright conditions this might be too visible to get bites reliably....hence I like a nice shady swim when the sun's out!

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