This week I have have one of my students staying with me for half term, I have been coaching Tayler since he was seven and have become firm friends with his family. He has become an accomplished young angler and is good company. On Monday, his first day, I took him on my first visit to the Lower Itchen Fishery this season. He fishes with a centrepin and can trot a float as well as many much older anglers.
I have mentioned in a previous post how the river suffered a disastrous fish kill a couple of summers ago and this year I was hoping to see a great improvement. I was not disappointed!
We split up after I had watched him catch his first fish, which he did about his third trot down.
You can see in the picture above that he even winds the line onto his reel backwards the same as I do.
We caught about forty grayling each during the day and both had at least one two pounder.
The river has improved greatly and although it is still not as good as it was a few years ago, we had a wonderful day.
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You mean he winds his line on the right way like the rest of us, nothing to do with you of course?
Les
Comment by Les Weller — November 4, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Dear Martin,
Just wondered what your thoughts where re the fishing on the Kennet this year in comparison to previous seasons.Heard many theories/ideas anglers blaming the floods of last summer(if so then surely someone would be enjoying bumper catches downstream?),the crayfish,the weather or perhaps the fish are responding to angling pressure.I have heard other river a proving equally difficult,is this anything out of the ordinary. Regards,Richard.
Comment by Richard Longmuir — November 6, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
Hi Richard
The river Kennet has not fished well so fsr this season and I will try and deal with your points in the order you made them.
The heavy rains of last Summer may well have washed a cocktail of various agricultural chemicals of the fields and into the rivers and what effect that could have had on the fish we do not know, but I don’t think it likely that the fish were washed down stream.
The crayfish have been in the Kennet for some years now and there doesn’t seem to be so many any more.They are also an excellent food source for certain coarse fish particularly in their soft shell stages.
As for angling pressure, whilst it is true there are more specialist barbel anglers now than in the past, I can remember when the Kennet was heavily match fished every week end and the angling pressure was much greater.
You ask if this is anything out of the ordinary, I think there are cycles in nature of which we are totally unaware of and many we don’t even begin to understand and yet we continue to meddle with her. I mean, introduced species and individual fish from other waters, chemicals on the land, in our waste discharges and in our bait. Add to this global climate change probably caused by our species, then I sometimes think it’s a wonder that anything is left alive on this planet.
Rant over, I’ll get back in my box!
Comment by Martin — November 6, 2008 @ 9:34 pm