River fishing ace has a birthday to remember on the Kennet
How I tackled a celebratory trip to the wonderful River Kennet
EVER since I was a kid, I have always tried to get out fishing on my birthday. Down the years that meant playing truant, going sick from work and upsetting girlfriends, but it had to be done!
For my latest one I’d arranged a day on River Thames with the Angling Trust’s national campaigns co-ordinator Martin Salter. Joining us was Martin’s Trust colleague James Champkin, a keen young specimen hunter.
I was already on the road when Martin rang me at 6.30am to tell me that the Thames was rising and that he didn’t think it would be any good. Thankfully, he’d organised a back-up venue, otherwise I might never have seen the beautiful Craven Estate, set in the Berkshire countryside above Newbury.
The fishery is primarily trout, but with a limited amount of winter coarse fishing by arrangement with the keeper. It contains a good head of chub and perch, with dace in the faster water and a few pockets of roach and grayling.
As a chalk stream, the upper Kennet runs off quickly. It was a little coloured when we arrived, but it dropped and cleared throughout the day.
The swim I chose had plenty of character. With far-bank cover and a small bridge at the bottom of the run it looked perfect for a waggler assault!
The other two fished upstream to start with and below the bridge in the afternoon. Martin, too, elected to floatfish while James went for big chub with bread and cheese paste baits.
My swim was 4ft-5ft deep so I set up a 14ft Daiwa Tournament RS 14F, a TDR2508 reel and 5lb (0.18mm) Pro Float line.
Float choice was a 5AAA No1 Truncheon Waggler with most of the shot locking the float on and just three No6 shot down. Hook was a size 16 prototype medium wire DH pattern tied to 30cm of 0.14mm Pro Rig line. I’d got plenty of bait, as I’d originally planned for the Thames. For this swim, I decided to leave the two pints of casters in the bag and just use maggots.
Rather than start fishing immediately, I fed the swim for a few minutes first. This helps to get the fish feeding confidently before any are hooked and removed from the swim.
With a catapult I fed five or six maggots every 30 seconds or so for about 10 minutes. Imagine how pleased I was when the float tip buried on the first put-in and I struck into a good chub. Happy birthday to me!
After an hour I’d got three chub in the net and lost a very big fish which buried itself in a snag and refused to some out. That one felt like it could easily have been 5lb-plus. Martin and James eventually appeared behind me after catching
a few fish upstream. Martin had taken a few dace and small chub from the fast, shallow water below the road bridge while James had discovered that Kennet trout like to eat bread and cheese paste as well as flies! In their swims below the bridge they added a few more chub and trout to their totals, and it was good to watch two Angling Trust employees, who are also clearly very accomplished anglers, in action. I’m a big believer in the work the Trust does and in my opinion we should all be members. In fact, I would go as far as to say that joining the Trust should be compulsory and added to our annual rod licence. Imagine what could be achieved if over one million rod licence holders paid just an additional £10 a year.
After watching the guys for a while I went back to work on my waggler swim. A few more chub were added to the total before I had to pack up and make the two-hour return journey for a birthday dinner date.
My sincere thanks go to Martin and to the owners of the stretch for making the day so special. It was only the second time I’d fished the Kennet and I’ve fallen in love with it. Martin said I would!