Reading & District Angling Association

Dear Sir,

Please find attached photo of a 7lb. 9oz. Chub I caught on Sunday 16^th November from Upper Benyons.

I was trotting a large lump of breadflake on a size 8 Super Specialist hook to 3lb. line under a Drennan 2.5 Swan Chubber float, with a Drennan 15ft. float rod and centrepin reel.

I fed the swim every couple of minutes with a little mashed bread for 20 minutes prior to fishing and caught this fish on my 4^th or 5^th trot through. The fish just refused to give in and took more than 20 minutes to land.

This was the 5^th swim I had fished that day, with only 3 small Chub (all under a pound) from one of the other 4 swims prior to this.

I will fill in the entry form in the Club Book and send it to you.

Kind Regards, Phil Hughesdon. Membership No.  A0042.

Hello,

This is a picture of my 15lb-01oz barbel that I caught from the Lower Benyons on 24^th/Sep/08

This is now my pb barbel. I’d like to thank RDAA for letting me fish such a great stretch of river.

Cheers again.

Toby (Mr T)

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Steve Litson's email on August 27th 2008

Dear Sir,

Many thanks for organising the brilliant coaching sessions - My son Oscar
(12 yrs old) loved every minute of it and has persuaded me to become a
senior member to go fishing with him.

He has picked up lots of techniques and tips on equipment. I have nothing
but admiration in which your very patient coaches helped and inspired this
group.

The hi-light was catching a 5lb Bronze Bream (please find attached the
photo - also in picture one of your coaches Will Barnard who was Oscar's
coach).

Picture in Junior Section

Peter Noble's email after landing "The Brute" at 49lbs 8ozs.

This was the 1st time i'd ever night fished Pingewood Lagoon, and i'v been looking forward to trying a 'specimen' lake for the first time. I'v always thought about catching the 'Brute', what a top catch that would be!

I arrived Thursday morning and fished the opposite side to the M4. I was on the bottom with PVA bags on 2oz wieghts on a 2 rod set up.I fished just in front of the main bank of weed with both rods to 20 - 30 yards from the margins. I was baiting the swim with pva bags dotted around the swim every hour and caught a few bream around 8lb odd on 10mm boilies.
Friday 5am i noticed some large carp surfacing about 40 yards out and a lot of bubbling, left and right of the swim. I changed boily flavour, and size, i also changed to a 3oz wieght with another bag of pva, launched the bait about 40 - 45 yards, near enough to where carp sign was witnessed. This was around 6am. Within 1/2 hour i was getting regular knocks and i noticed numerous drop backs, both bite alarms where giving good indication of fish near my bait. Around 7am i noticed a huge carp poke its head out of the water twice, quite near my bait. I did'nt give it much thought and dozed a little, as i was quite tired. 
Around 9am i had a huge drop back and struck, the clutch of my bait runner went nuts! It was set up for handling 20 pounders, so i knew i'd hooked into a decent fish. I was hoping for a 30+ on my 1st attempt, but i really was'nt not to fussed if i blanked a decent carp, so was very happy with what i had struck into. After a min or so of the fish taking line, i turned the clutch setting up and gently pulled the fish round and into a patch of the famous weeds.
However, i believe the weed in this lake helped me out a bit and chilled the fish out, as it did'nt fight as hard as when the fish was driving through clear water. Even so i was hauling a LOT of wieght gently back to shore and the fish was still struggling and still was pulling a little bit of clutch. I landed the huge clump of weed/fish, pulled back all the weed from my net and...
OMG! :D
The brute was landed!

This was somewhere around 9.30 am.

I feel i am a very lucky person to have caught such a big fish in my 1st night fish attempt at Pingewood.
Awesome fishing! 

Copy of letter from P Williams after landing RDAA Record Chub (8lbs 1oz) in February 2008.

" I have been a member of Reading Fishing Club since 2005 and after spending 25 years in the fishing "wilderness" it was great to get back into one of the most enjoyable hobbies I have ever done.

Now I am a bit older and a bit lazier, to go from match fishing in my early twenties to specimen hunting has been a refreshing change, even though I still love to trot for the "small stuff".

The amount of information and knowledge available nowadays is obviously a benefit and has helped me improve on my "P.B's" over the last 3 years.

However, up until January of  this year my PB for Chub was 4-08 caught last winter from the Osier Bed Stream when the Kennet was in flood.

So in January I thought I would try an "old fashioned" bait as opposed to the numerous "newer" baits available today - homemade cheese paste.

My first fish of the year was a 5-08 Chub from the Thames at Abingdon along with a %-06 Bream and many more Chub ranging from

2lbs to 4-08lbs. I thought to myself "this is THE bait" and I haven't been proved wrong. On the 20th February 2008 I fished the bottom end of Ufton River and had Chub of  2-12, 4-13 and 5-02 all on "THE" bait.

The great thing about the Kennet is the amount of different swims available to fish. and so on the 21st I decided to try the Upper Benyons. Seeing the weather forecast the night before, with the wind being a south westerly I suppose I could have changed tactics and gone for Barbel with Halibut pellets but I decided to stick with the cheesepaste.

After trying a few swims without a touch I plonked myself down to a "nice inside slack", using a running ledger with 4 ozs quiver tip I only had to wait around 5 minutes before the tip was twitching. Ten minutes later the monster eventually took the courage to take "THE" bait and rest as they say is history. The fish of a lifetime and to say I am over the moon is an understatement."

July 2007

June 2007  Whistley Mill River

March 2007

For quality fishing in the south of england, you'd struggle to do much better. You can get as involved as you want to be. Either just dabbling, a few weekends of the year, or getting out every day and night. You can sit alone, quietly in your own tucked away swim, or get chatting to the lads, get involved in maintaining venues, or get down to the anual dinner dance for a social. Great value for money either way,with acess to some stunning waters
Its a bargain in my opinion

March 2007

Above anything else, I have never met a friendlier bunch of people, i think 90percent of the people I come into contact with on club waters ae proud of the club and will chat to you openly about every aspect of their favourite venues etc. i'll let everyone else tell you about how great the waters are

March 2007

I moved to reading 18 months ago and this has been my first season on RDAA, i can't reccomend joining enough, can't think of many places in the country where you'd get this pedigree and range of waters for the price!
I even gave up match angling shortly after joining as there were so many waters to explore and species to catch!

February 2007

There must be so much behind the scenes work going on at the RDAA and i'm sure you all work very hard to help the enjoyment of others.
This is my first season as a member after moving up from somerset and i must say how brilliant the fishing and the waters are, my only problem is there are too many to have a go at them all!
keep up the great work .

swis

January 21st 2007

Justin - for the amount of water available and the size potential of most species I think even at the full price the RDAA permit is unbelievable value.

If someone is going to not bother with a full permit for the whole year for the sake of say £30 then thats up to them - RDAA have maybe 30% of the ticket sales they had ten years ago but still manage to offer nationally significant (even possible record weight) specimens of Barbel, Tench, Dace, Perch, Eels, Bream, Carp - the list goes on...

Staggering for the price in my opinion.

Mr Mac

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January 3rd 2007

Fished the Kennet today for the first time in ages.
10lb of quality Dace, a couple of decent chub and 3 bream to 2lb.
Fished the stick float with single red maggot on a 20.
Great to see so many silver fish in the old river these days.

Fished a nice little slack and thoroughly enjoyed myself

Bob

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October 8th 2006

Lower Benyons

Had a 9&3/4lb Barbel at 4.15pm and a 12&3/4lb Barbel at 7.00pm on Saturday 7 Oct. Meat on the hook and no feed or groundbait. A perfect evening!

Derek

October 2nd 2006  (Pictures on Venue page)

A great day for me on Cottage Lane Lake 2 Sunday.

Fished 10:30 - 18:30, weather was showery with a fair gusty wind from the S/SW. Fished from the north side of the lake just before the dogleg using boilies and bags.

First fish was @ 13:27, a 12-08 mirror, came in without much of a fight.
Second was @ 16:46, an 11-00 common, again didnt fight much.
Third was @ 17:14, a lovely 20-08 common which punted my PB 19-08 mirror from Blue Pool off the top spot

Got piccys of all three, although dissapointingly the 20 pounder is a bit blurred, but then both me and my daughter Susan who took the shot were shaking like a leaf
Unfortunately Susan and my friend both blanked so that kinda took the fun out of it a bit.

Woohoo!!! My first "specimen"!
Mark.

10th July 2006

Hi all,

I am new to the forum, but thought I would share my first fishing day today as a new member of RDAA after a 15 year or so gap.

I have always had fond memories of Sonning in the past and so decided my first outing would be here. I was not disappointed!

Had a fantastic days fishing, one of the best ever. Started fishing at around 10.15 this morning just off the end of my rod in about 10ft of water. First bite came at midday a 7lbs bream, had a further 3 bream in the next hour all between 6lb - 7lb. All was quiet until 3.30 and then the action started again. Caught bream in the 5lbs - 7lbs bracket steadily up until about 8.00 this evening and then to cap a superb day two tench made an appearance, both over 7lbs. Ended up with 12 bream and the 2 tench for just short of the ton.

All fish came to double and treble sweetcorn. My dad was fishing in the next peg and managed to get two 7lbs+ bream on the pole. Great fun!

I am looking forward to our next fishing adventure

Tight lines
Darren

7th June2005

Via the Forum e mail

Fished Sonning for the first time today. Will certainly be going back for more . Cracking venue. Managed Bream 9lb+ Tench 8lb+ Perch 2lb+.

Caught more fish today than I have done all year.

Little Tinca

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13th July 2005

Hello rdaa,

Whilst out fishing on Lower Benyons on wednesday the 13 July, I finally came face to face with the person who has been clearing the dense undergrowth from the river banks.I am of course talking about Mike Whitford.Having seen the great job that he has done at Beat 4b by the bridge and the amount of work that he has put in at Lower Benyons i was able to say thank you to him in person.Acces to the bottom end of benyons is great and all the rest of the sections are lovely and clear.I was able to wheel my Boss Box about with no problems,which in that heat was life saving.Mike was there all day right up to 20.00hrs when i finally packed up and he was still mowing.

Please could you as an Association give him all the support he needs as the job he is doing is helping us anglers to fish places that we could 'nt reach over receant years.I certainly felt the benefits of not having to think twice about where i go "wont go there because its too overgrown".

please if possible pass my thanks again to mike through yourselfs.

all the best

Scott Nelson (1987 intermediate national champion)

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26th May 2005

I’ve read with interest the threads on the website about Sonning. I took your advice and have fished it several times recently and confirm that the bream fishing is barmy! Up to 90lb’s at a sitting and often from underneath the rod top – biggest 8.5 lb. Not many tench – biggest just under 7 lb’s, but trying to work out how to avoid 8 lb bream to get through to the tench is a very nice problem to have! I know of 3 tench over 8 lb’s that came out on Friday.

21st May 2005 via e mail

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23rd  April 2005 via e mail

Went over to Wylie’s & Hambridge yesterday. Wylie’s looked a bit dead so I opted for Hambridge. The tench weren’t really switched on there, but I did get one lovely female just over 5lb’s & a 4 ½ lb bream, along with some nice roach. Hopefully Wylie’s will be as good this year as in 2002 when I had 6 over 6 lb’s & another 4 over 7 lb’s with the best at 7 lb 12, and that was just in the “closed season” period!

Simon Taylor

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16th March 2005 via e mail

I must say what exceptional value for money our permits represent, considering the quality fishing that is on offer they are cheap as chips. Not that I am complaining which in its self makes a change. Well done R&DAA for resisting the commercial and financial aspects that ruin other organisations.

Slider

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27th November 2004

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20th October 2004

Pictures in Venues, Kennet,  Lower Benyons

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