There are two day ticket stretches of the River Kennet near Newbury - Denford Fishery and Barton Court. Does anyone have experience of these sections of the river and advice as to which is preferable?

They're both near Hungerford. I don't know Denoford but the river around there is nice. Barton Court I have fished a few times. It lovely around Kintbury and there's some good water but it's mainly carriers, they don't have too much of the main river that's fishable. Always managed to get a few decent fish. Trouble is that they're both very expensive, but it is premier league fishing.

I have fished both and Barton Court is definately the better of the two.

Denford is in a nice location, well looked after but not too manicured, with plenty of wild life despite parts of it being right up to the A4 and the fly life is good with a huge mayfly hatch which is usually quite late, often peaking in early June.

It is also mainly carriers with only a very short stretch of main stream, even the largest carriers are only about 10 yards wide and many are much smaller, quite a lot of the water is treed over although this adds to the pleasure for me.

I gave up fishing at Denford a few years ago because it is very expensive and in my view is not "premier league" being substantially stocked with fairly scabby tailess rainbows of 12" - 14" with a few larger rainbows and browns added.

To me it is a very expensive way of catching stockie rainbows that I could catch in any hole in the ground for a quarter of the price. Even trying to focus on browns I would often leave at lunchtime with a limit before I started to return all browns.

Barton Court is a few miles downstream of Denford, a bit more manicured, and much more biased towards browns although they too are largely stockies and in my view is a much better deal at a similar price.

If you watch Johh Wilson's programmes on Sky long enough you will eventually see him trotting for grayling at Denford and catching big browns on the mayfly at Barton Court.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary