Another Great Day on the Kennet

Biggest grayling of the day.

After the recent success of catching my first grayling, I returned to Barton Court Fishery on the River Kennet. I had brought dad with me, he needed to catch his first grayling and I felt confident that this was the place to do it. We arrived to find a frost on the fields and the maze of carrier streams flowing quickly, textbook grayling conditions. Our first casts were in a small weir pool that had produced fish for me on my previous visit, but after half an hour we were both without so much as a bite. A change of swim was needed but dad tried one last cast and to our surprise the float slipped under. A lively silvery fish darted around in the clear water and as dad guided it over the net we could see that it was what we had come here for. A small but beautifully coloured grayling and dads first of the species. Well done dad! After some lunch we tried the swim where I had caught my first grayling the last time I was here. On his first cast dad hooked a much bigger fish, a very good grayling was soon in the net, the scales settled on 11oz, a cracking fish! Several more grayling followed for dad, including one of 9oz and two small brown trout. He was getting too good at it! I was still to hook a fish and so I moved to a lovely looking pool below a fast, shallow run. I caught fish straight away, small grayling, several decent roach and a lone dace came my way, before I hooked a big trout which spooked the fish and then snapped my delicate hooklength. Time to move on! Dad was now fishing in another weir pool and continuing to catch well so I left him to it and settled in to a small weir pool of my own. Two large brown trout were the result of a dozen or so casts and were to be the last fish of the day. The sun had set and as it got dark we made the journey home, both very happy with our days fishing. Visit www.riverkennet.co.uk for information on the Barton Court Fishery.

Great fun on light tackle!