On Tuesday I had a day on my beloved river Kennet, fishing a swim on the Warren beat of the Wasing Estate. I took six pints of frozen casters and a couple of pints of fresh ones for the hook, bought from Davies Angling who always have excellent bait and give me a good price.

I spent the first part of the day in this swim trotting double caster and feeding hemp and caster in five feet of fast flowing water. I alternated between a heavy rig with a stepped up Harrison float rod with six pound line and my Drennan Stick float rod with two and a half pound line. The latter is not my choice of barbel tackle but is more fun for the roach and dace.

The first trot down, with the heavy rig, produced a chub of about four pounds followed by a small brown trout. These were quickly followed by a small barbel of about a pound. I then realised I had forgotten my camera as barbel of this size are rarer than nine pounders and I would have liked a photo. The swim then seemed to die and despite further feeding no more bites were forthcoming.

I switched to the lighter rig in hope of some silver fish and had another barbel, the same size as the first and a bigger brown trout, about two pounds. I also foul hooked a couple of larger fish at the bottom of the swim in the faster shallow water. Fortuneately the hook pulled out quickly both times. I shortened my trot to avoid the gravel shallows in case there were barbel spawning there and managed another small chub of just less than a pound. No roach and dace were showing and despite trying float fished pellet on the rig I described in my last post, I had no further bites. As I had feared, the bristle hair did not hold the pellet securely enough for the pressure of the fast water and I was never sure if the bait was still on. Take a look at the picture and avoid them!

By this stage I convinced myself that there were barbel spawning on the shallows below me, although the Kennet is still too turbid for me to see them, so I moved upstream to the Brimpton beat to my favourite trotting swim just above the bridge. I fished there for the next two hours with the light float rig and caught dace and roach “a fish a chuck”, the biggest dace was about half a pound and the best roach was a “pounder”.

This is why I love this river so much, not for the big fish but for it’s variety of sport in such lovely surroundings.

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