The forecast for the day was a 40% chance of snow in some places down to the M4. Well they almost got it right, except I was fishing south of the M4 in a blizzard. Together with my fishing buddy Reg, we decided to chance our arm on the Kennet near Newbury. The local information from the riverkeeper was that the main river was sufferering from cold water influx after the thaw, coupled with higher than usaul levels of salinity with all the salt being washed from the roads. It therefore seemed logical to fish the carriers which would probably be less effected.
I decided to take the opportunity on a the carrier to long-trot, one of my favourite ways of fishing although I seldom get the chance on the spate rivers in the Devon area. The first problem that I had was the snow build up on the rod prevented the line flowing smoothly through the rings making trotting awkward. Reg was using ceramic-lined rings on his carbon rod and had no such problems, and he was quickly into fish.
My first take was from a chub which promptly ran me into a tree, then disappeared. With continual light feeding of maggots, we both managed to catch chublet, dace and roach; two of Reg's fish were around the pound mark whereas I struggled to catch fish over half a pound, but they were really exquisite as the photograph shows. The day also featured trout, both brown and rainbow, which would show up at regular intervals in the small carriers, and splashed about putting all the silver fish off feeding.
It took a while for the fish to start feeding again after the commotion. and then another brownie would appear. It seems churlish to moan about catching 2-3lb trout, and we had 10-12 each and the day slowly warmed up. Two novel experiences Reg noticed was catching the same trout twice, and then after being broken by a trout on his light tackle, he swiftly landed another and got his hook back from the same fish that had broken his line previously.
Under the circumstances with the weather, it was an excellent days fishing. The Kennet has never disappointed me yet.