Touch of frost is no problem for anglers

Despite the occasional touch of frost to remind us that despite it officially being British Summer Time it is really still winter, the fishing around the area continued to be buoyant last week with the commercial pools in particular continuing to deliver the goods.

The Royal Berkshire Fishery continues to be one of the more reliable local venues with roach, perch and carp all showing in numbers from the various lakes and numbers of anglers are getting to grips with what can, at times, can be very fast and furious action.

As far as the redfins are concerned the really big fish which have put in an appearance in the past have not been showing but there are numbers of smaller fish to make up for it. One local getting amongst them on Lake Two last week was Phil Neale who fished a light waggler outfit with red maggot on a size 18 hook to take an estimated 25 lb of fish with the best weighing in at around 1lb 4oz. Phil also netted a couple of perch to around the 2 lb mark and a number of smaller samples.

The carp in the venue continue to feed well with both Lakes One and Two in decent form for fish to well into double figures including a brace scaling 16lb 12oz and 14lb 4oz to Windsor’s Barry Bannister. Barry fished a piece of paste on light leger gear to take the carp from the margins of Lake One on a size 10 barbless hook on 8lb fluorocarbon line.

Carp were on the menu for Twyford’s Graham Vickers too, who spent a day and night session on a local pit to record a cracking mirror of 22lb 6oz.

Graham presented two pieces of plastic Enterprise corn on a size eight hook to 12lb main line and 15lb coated braid with a 3oz running lead to take the fish from the side of a gravel bar he had baited with hemp and pellets.

The tench, which were beginning to make an appearance from the gravel pits around Twyford, appear to have disappeared with the return to slightly cooler temperatures but there are bream feeding locally with a specimen of 9lb 12oz from one of the Reading pits to Jeff Rice.

Jeff was happy to weigh in the bream, along with another of around the 5lb mark, which picked up his bait offered on a size 10 hook to 6lb line. Jeff used a fishmeal groundbait laced with pellets to tempt the fish into his close-range swim at the mouth of a large bay.

Given the variability of the weather, sport for the forthcoming week looks set to be steady rather than spectacular, but at this time of year - which can be notoriously tricky - I for one will settle for that!