Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'river kennet'.
-
River Kennet - Newbury 1000 - 1345 Cool, bright and breezy. River 'full' but not in flood condition - carrying a little colour but not as much as I expected!. 2 Chub; 1¾lb & 1½lb. 1 Pike 3lb 14oz. 18 Dace, 8 Roach. 3 Gudgeon. Not so much a trotting session as a hold the float in a slack behind the tree session. Seems a lot of fish were shoaled up in a very small slack! In truth I hadn't intended to go today - Paul and I had acquired the required permissions for a session on the Middle Kennet tomorrow. But we've been keeping an eye on an unchanging weather forecast for over a week - and called it off! Still today was the relative calm before the storm and I wasn't overly surprised to see Rusty on the bank shortly after I made my first cast and he too snaffled a couple of chub (and not a lot else) from the next swim upstream. He only gave it an hour and a half and I slipped into his spot for the last ¾hr for a few more dace and roach plus a lob gobbling Esox!
-
River Kennet - Thatcham 0730 - 1030 Cool, calm & cloudy - a lovely benign winter's morn. WT 44ºC. 2 Chub; 3lb 5oz, 2lb 10oz. A return to a swim that Paul fished last weekend - and as hoped it threw up a couple of chub! First ¼ hour was quietly lively! Started with float fished lobs and pretty much hooked a LARGE pike straight away. Never really got a good look at it but had it on for some time. The uneven contest was eventually decided in the pike's favour but not before the swim was well and truly trashed! Not surprisingly it was well over an hour before anything else put in an appearance - but thankfully they did - both fish on trotted maggot and both gobbing up big fistfuls of freebies!
-
River Kennet - Nr Thatcham. 0930 - 1300 Bright with sunny intervals after early rain. 10ºC. River low and carrying a bit of colour. 6 Chub - all over 1lb, biggest 3¼lb. 1 Barbel; 3¾lb. 6 Dace. 1 Roach & 3 spotties. Well its been a while since I've had a session like that from here! In fact the last time I caught more than 3 chub in a session from this venue was on the first day of the 1993 season! (when I also had 6). Nothing particularly huge, 3 of them were around the 1½lb stamp bur very nice to see some 'schooly' sized fish coming through, All the fish bar a couple of the troot were from the same swim too. Plan for this morning had been to start with a dawn raid on the canal and then switch to a trotting session on the river. Part one of that plan was abandoned at 0530 when I got up, poked my head out the door, checked the rain radar and went back to bed for an extra 2½hours kip! By the time breakfast was over so was the rain so part 2 was put into action. Had planned to cover more water but in the end just fished 3 swims with the bulk of the time spent in just one - really didn't need to move! Cracking sport!
-
- 1
-
-
- river kennet
- trotting
- (and 2 more)
-
River Kennet - Newbury 1100 - 1300 Warm with sunny spells, Breezy. 20ºC. River quite low. 2 Chub; 2lb 10oz, 2lb. 12 Dace, 10 Roach, 1 Gudgeon and a brownie. So after a frustrating morning a couple of hours on the river to see if the chub would eat my worms - to which the answer was YES! Being a Friday I had expected to have the place to meself and planned to fish a number of swims. However as I turned up who should I see pulling on his chesties - Rusty! Being a gent he let me have first dibs at swims and I was soon wading across the shallows to get access to a favourite swim of old - and one that I removed an obstacle from last winter's floods last time out - so this was my first 'proper' go at it in nearly a year. First trot through on worm produced the bigger chub and switching to maggot produced the usual mixed bag plus a slightly smaller chub. Rusty had had a selection of dace roach and spotties when I spoke to him later - and left for a venue further downstream soon after.....
-
Speen Moors 0845 - 1200 Still mild and overcast with some milky sunshine. River quite low. 2 Perch (both circa 1lb), 6 roach, 1 dace, 1 skimmer, 1 spottie and a doz+ gudgeon. More of a walk than a fishing session as I pretty much wandered around the whole venue. Gudgeon seemed to be everywhere! Tried a few of my usual perch AND chub swims without an awful lot of action - needs a bit of water!
-
River Kennet - Thatcham 1400 - 1700 Fine and sunny. 18ºC. River quite low. 1 Barbel; 5lb 6oz, 2 Chublets, 8 Dace, 3 Roach & 8 Spotties Unexpectedly had a ½ day so seemed a pity NOT to spend it up to my calves in river water trotting a loafer through various runs. Fished a number of swims and had dace a small trout from all of them. Barbel was a real struggle to get in - and spent most of the fight trying to get downstream of it to coax it out of a weed-bed, wasn't even sure I still had it on for most of the time!
-
River Kennet - Newbury 0700 - 1000 Bright and sunny - river quite low. (Though nowhere near as low as 2011) 1 Chub 3lb 11oz,1 Perch (circa 1lb) 40+ Dace & Roach (2/3rds dace to 1/3rd roach). 8 gudgeon and 2 spotties. Pleasant morning's trotting in the sunshine. Nice to see so many silver fish in the river - like to see a few more chub and barbel though!
-
River Kennet - Nr Thatcham 1800 - 2015 Warm and sunny. River quite low now after a dry summer. 1 Barbel, 3lb, 1 Chub, 2½lb, 4 Dace, 1 Roach & 9 Spotties - including 1 of nearly 3lb! Yesterday I took my bag of pellets out of my tackle bag to refill it, groove up some hook baits and flavour them up with some monster crab - the only flaw in that plan was forgetting to put said bag of pellets back into tackle bag - Doh! Didn't forget me maggots so had to make do with a couple of hours of daylight for a cracking session on the float. Fished 3 swims - following the bait downstream and had all the biggies (including the troot) in the 'bottom' peg.
-
River Kennet - Nr Thatcham 1900 - 2300 Warm, clear evening. 23º->16ºC. 1 Chub 2½lb, 3 chunky Dace & 3 Brownies Quick return to Monday's venue - this time to accompany Paul who had arrived a couple of hours before me (some of us have to work Fridays!). Thankfully the trotting gear again won the day as ledgering was a dead loss. Paul blanked and I had just one chub rattle to show for my 2 hours on the lead.....
-
River Kennet - Nr Thatcham 0930 - 1430 Warm and sunny. 1 Barbel, 4lb. 4 Chub - all between 8oz - 1lb. 18 Dace most really chunky - I weighed one at 11oz. 1 roach. A doz spotties most small save for a couple of pounders. A lovely morning's trotting - accompanied for the first hour by Jaq! Bin a few years since she came fishing with me - but it was a lovely summer's morning and she did have an ulterior motive. And that motive was Blackberries! I've never seen so many and such huge fruit - Jaq picked 6lb in just 45 mins - all now converted to bramble jelly (lovely!). The fishing weren't bad either - some really nice dace and chublets to start and after I bade the missus farewell I ended up in a familiar swim where I snaffled the barbel to finish off the session. We'll be back!
-
River Kennet - Newbury 0500 - 0830 Warm, overcast-ish morning. River getting quite low after a dry summer (so far) 1 Chub; 1¾lb, 4 Roach; 1 of 12oz, 27 Dace, 1 Perch c¾lb & 2 Brownies both ±1lb. Pleasant morning's trotting and home in time for breakfast. Nice to get my string pulled with regularity after the Stillwater frustrations of late!
-
River Kennet - Padworth 1930 - 2330 Warm evening with a nice breeze to keep the mossies off. Still 16ºC when I packed up. 1 Barbel; 5lb 11oz Unusually for me ledgered with two rods (and even more unsually left the trotting gear at home). One rod on boilie and one on halibut pellet. Pellet rod went off within ½ hour of arriving - a great start. Unfortunately it was then down to the crayfish to move in. Bait thieving activity died down for the last 45 mins - but it was false hope....
-
River Kennet - Newbury 2045 - 0000 Warm and overcast - river still has good flow though a little turbid. 2 Dace & a spottie. Planned to be bankside way earlier - but was seriously delayed getting home. Quick 20 mins trotting followed by 3 hours looking at a mainly stationary rod tip. Had a couple of promising rattles but nothing that developed into anything 'hittable.'
-
River Kennet, Padworth 1530 - 2230 Hot, overcast and sultry - still 21ºC when we packed up. 4 brownies - a couple circa 1¼lb (possibly the same one!) Reports from the river suggested barbel fishing would be a bit of a struggle - so the trotting rod was added to the quiver in the hope of a few dace - but yet again one of my favoured trotting swims here was occupied with troot and not a lot else! As expected the barbelling was hard going - not helped by tonnes of pussy willow fluff coming downstream which slowly built up on the line - and was a complete bugger to get off. I did hook a barbel on the float - had it on for an absolute age but just couldn't shift it upstream - felt enormous - but eventually all was revealed when I eventually got it to the surface - I'd fouled hooked a 4-5lb fish in the dorsal - no wonder I couldn't bring it up against the current - I was trying when eventually the hook pinged back at my face! Paul joined me for the last 3 or so hours and fared a little better - losing a fish (which too felt like it hade been foul hooked) and landing a barbel of 5¼lb.
-
River Kennet - Nr Newbury 1145 - 1530 Warm, overcast and very muggy - lovely to be standing IN the river. 2 Chub; both around 1¼lb, 20 Dace, 4 Roach, 8 Gudgeon and 4 spotties - all small apart form one which might have scrapped a pound. Quick return to the venue I spent 2 hours at on the opening morning - reasoning that at least I should have the place to myself - wrong as it turned out - 3 other anglers already here. So whilst I had intended to fish a different swim the waders were pressed into action to get to the swims the 3 other (wader-less)anglers couldn't reach. Last half hour spent trotting under the bridge - which resulted in both chub.
-
River Kennet - Newbury 1130 - 1430 Cold (2ºC) with stiff NE wind - Brrrr. WT down to 41ºF 3 Grayling; 2 smalluns and one close to a pound. 22 Dace, 1 Roach & 11 Gudgeon. I had great plans for this week - however they all involved mild, misty spring mornings (and evenings!) by the canal in pursuit of monster perch. The cold, Siberian blast over the last couple of days as put paid to those thoughts. I did dither about going at all today - but needed some bait - so a couple of hours in a banker swim for dace and grayling was in order. Also hoped I might fluke a barbel - but its clearly too cold for them as well!
-
River Kennet - Newbury 0900 - 1130 Bright with rising temps 1º->6ºC. River high and carrying some colour after last nights rain (and the start of the melt). WT 44ºF. 2 doz dace - few chunky ones though nothing particularly impressive. 5 Grayling - 3 of which needed the net but were sub 1lb (though not by much), 3 Roach, a bleak and 2 brownies both 1+lb. Yet again a weekend where I had a Frome trip pencilled in is thwarted by more rain and a flooded Dorset river, so had to make do with a quick session on a favourite winter slack. Hoping to find a chub or two or even a barbel and was briefly connected to something substantial which shot off into the current and shed the hook - ho hum!
-
River Kennet - Thatcham 0945 - 1130 Still bright and sunny! 1 Chub (circa 1lb). 3 Nuisance brownies, 2 well over a lb and a tiddler. As I was in the area and had some maggot left I thought I'd trot a few swims to see what would turn up - and the answer was mainly trout!!! Each of the spotties were from 3 different swims and caught pretty much 1st or 2nd cast - and each chose to take to the air - wrecking said swim - ho hum!
-
River Kennet - Newbury 1945 - 2320 Mild, breezy and overcast. 14ºC. River at normal summer levels. 1 Barbel; 4lb 4oz and a chublet. Umm - bit of a pattern developing here - yet again a fish first cast with little action following. At least there was no crayfish - just the occasional rattle and pull - which eventually resulted in a small chub. Fished a swim I've never ledgered before....
-
River Kennet backstream Padworth 2000 - 2300 Overcast, breezy with showery rain at times. 16ºC River down a touch on when I last fished here in August (see 8th August entry) 1 barbel 4lb 11oz Yet again a fish first cast, followed by not a lot. Well nothing with fins - the signals were insatiable. Probably should have fished a couple of swims in rotation like last time, though I rather suffered from 'swim inertia' being tucked snug under my brolly on a rainy evening...
-
River Kennet - Padworth 1945 - 2345 Clear and misty evening, with a near full moon - very ethereal! River at normal summer levels (ie higher than last year!) 2 Barbel: 6lb 3oz & 6lb 0oz Quite a few bumps and rattles - but didn't get a proper bite until around 2230 - with the second fish arriving on the scene ½hr or so later - would have thought it was the same one if I hadn't weighed them!
-
River Kennet - Newbury 0930 - 1230 Showery, 17ºC. River down to 'normal' summer levels - still several inches higher than this time last year! 30+Dace, around a dozen Roach, some gudgeon and chublet and a brownie. Pleasant morning's trotting - though I rather hoped I'd connect with something that needed the net (though a couple of the dace and the brownie fell into that category - some of the dace were very chunky...)
-
River Kennet - Newbury 1945 - 2315 Clear and warm evening - lovely night to be out with the bats - absolutely dozens of them flying at dusk. 1 Chub 1¼lb For the 2nd week in a row a fish first cast - followed by not a lot. Did get quite a few knocks and rattles which I took to be tiddlers - as it wasn't crayfish.
-
River Kennet - Padworth 1945 - 2315 Clear and breezy after heavy rain earlier in the day - river rose 4 inches whilst I was there - chair started off on dry gravel - seat was under water by the end (had me chesties on so didn't matter!). 1 Barbel 5lb 10oz. Only bite (and fish - clearly) 1st cast. Not a touch afterwards!
-
River Kennet - Nr Thatcham. 0630 - 0930 Overcast and muggy with a little drizzle at times. River down a few inches on a month ago but still in fine nick with little colour. 2 Chub; 2lb 2oz, & 1¼lb, 6 Dace - all really chunky specimens, 2 Gudgeon & 4 brownies biggest 1¾lb. Pleasant early trotting session - spent a fascinating 10 minutes watching a barbel feeding no more than 3 feet from my waders - obviously taking grubs and whatever I was disturbing with my feet - tried to handline a maggot to it - but that spooked it!
