Warwickshire Avon - Hope and Hypothermia

There are moments in life when a man must ask himself serious questions. Questions such as: Why am I awake? Why do my hands feel like they belong to someone else? And why am I voluntarily scraping ice off a windscreen when civilised people are still asleep, warm, and blissfully unaware that chub even exist? These questions, of course, are swiftly ignored, because an angler who pauses too long for introspection rarely makes it to the river.

Minus four degrees is not a temperature; it is a condition. A state of being. It removes all unnecessary sensation from the extremities and replaces them with a vague sense of regret. 

Fingers lose their purpose almost immediately, becoming ornamental hooks at the ends of sleeves. Yet still, the ritual must be observed. Ice scraped. Engine started. Maggots quietly contemplating their fate in the passenger footwell, unaware they are about to be drowned for reasons no fish has yet agreed to.

The roads were ungritted, as they always are, because rural councils correctly assume that anyone daft enough to be travelling at this hour in these conditions has already made peace with risk. 

I wasn’t going far anyway just far enough to maintain the illusion that I was popping out casually, rather than embarking on a small expedition driven entirely by blind optimism.

The Warwickshire Avon lay before me in its winter finest: slate grey, moody, and possessing that crystal clarity that instantly tells you you’ve made a terrible mistake. Gin clear water is beautiful in the same way a job rejection email is beautifully written. You admire it, but it offers no encouragement whatsoever.

Still, the trotting gear went together with the well-rehearsed motions of a man who believes despite all available data that this might be the day. Maggots were introduced initially than after twenty minutes, a float was Vaseline guided lovingly downstream, and each run was watched with forensic intensity. Nothing. Not a tremor. Not even a half-hearted indication that a fish had briefly considered the concept of eating before sensibly dismissing it.

Two swims passed like this, the chub clearly holding an emergency meeting somewhere mid-river and voting unanimously to stay put. They were not hungry. They were not curious. They were not impressed. Winter chub are philosophers. They know that feeding is optional and suffering is eternal.

At this point, an internal dialogue began. You could leave, it said. You could go and get warm. You could still have fish and chips and pretend this was always the plan. But anglers are stubborn creatures, and so the cheese paste appeared a substance that smells like regret and hope rolled into one.

While feeding maggots for reasons known only to tradition in the third swim getting ready to trot, I dropped the paste into a slack to my right and enjoyed some steaming hot tea from my flask . This was not tactical brilliance. This was muscle memory. And then, in the manner of all great moments, it happened while I wasn’t paying proper attention. Pluck. Pull. Proper pull round. Suddenly the universe made sense again.

The strike was instant and enthusiastic, fuelled by months of pent-up winter nonsense. The fish, a chub of respectable but not headline-grabbing proportions, fought with the weary resignation of something that had absolutely not planned for this today. It was netted quickly, as if keen to get the whole embarrassing episode over with.

And just like that twenty seconds. From frozen, existentially questioning idiot to grinning simpleton. A smile appeared that had no business being there. The cold vanished. The load of balls blank swims were forgiven. Winter itself was temporarily cancelled, a happy angler

This is the absurd alchemy of fishing: hours of discomfort instantly justified by a single, moderately sized fish. Outsiders will never understand this. They will ask, Was it worth it? and you will say yes, without hesitation, knowing full well that if you’d blanked you’d still probably say yes, just with less conviction.

With the moral victory secured, I abandoned trotting altogether and roved further swims with cheese paste, partly in pursuit of more chub, partly to burn calories in advance of the fish and chips already looming large in my imagination. No further takers materialised. 

The river had given what it intended to give and no more. Yet the morning had softened. The sky was blue. The winter sun hung low and honest, making everything look better than it had any right to. Even the cold felt earned now, like a badge rather than a punishment. 

Eventually, with cheeks tingling and feet beginning to issue formal complaints, I packed up. One fish. Job done. The challenge satisfied. The ancient, irrational contract between angler and river upheld once more.

Because winter fishing is not about numbers, or size, or even success. It is about going when you shouldn’t, hoping when you know better, and finding meaning in the smallest of victories. It is about scraping ice off windscreens and pretending, just briefly, that this all makes perfect sense.

And sometimes just sometimes the chub agrees.

Warwickshire Avon - Graveyards and Graphospasms

So, 2026 then. A new year dawns not with trumpets or celestial fanfare, but with that familiar angler’s cough that comes from inhaling air best described as “aggressively damp”. The sort of cold that doesn’t merely chill you, but enters negotiations with your joints. Nic from Avon Angling and I, brimming with the sort of optimism only anglers possess at the turn of a calendar page, decided to welcome the New Year in the traditional fashion: standing still beside a river, staring at a float, and convincing ourselves this was entirely sensible behaviour.

We met on a stretch far more convenient to me than it was to Nic, which immediately raised the moral question that all anglers pretend not to notice: why would you leave fish you know you can catch to go and look for fish you might not? It’s a dilemma right up there with “do I really need another float?” and “will this be the last cast?” The truth is, when fish live practically on your doorstep and occasionally have the decency to bite, venturing further afield feels less like exploration and more like betrayal.

This particular bit of the Warwickshire Avon is a stretch I can reach in ten minutes door-to-door, which in angling terms makes it practically part of the house. I’ve fished it in stolen half-hours, dusk sessions, and those “I’ll just stop for ten minutes” moments that somehow last until darkness and domestic disapproval descend together. 

It suffered badly during a pollution incident, like much of the Avon, but rivers have long memories and short tempers. With restocking, natural migration during floods, and a bit of quiet recovery, fish have begun to reappear like rumours first one, then another, until suddenly match weights are creeping back up and hope is once again permitted.

We chose a section often commandeered by match anglers, the sort who arrive with seat boxes resembling NASA ground stations. On this New Year’s morning, however, it was deserted. Just the two of us, the river, and a vast selection of swims to choose from, many of them so close together that moving pegs feels less like tactical angling and more like rearranging deckchairs.

Nic took the top of the stretch while I settled a few pegs downstream after abandoning my first choice an entirely standard manoeuvre designed to show decisiveness while concealing uncertainty. This is proper long-trotting water, the sort that encourages dreams of perfect runs, dipping floats, and fish queueing politely beneath a gentle rain of maggots. And in conditions like these, when the river feels half asleep and the fish are contemplating life choices, there’s something deeply comforting about the belief that enough maggots, applied with sufficient optimism, can revive even the most dormant of aquatic souls.

After feeding steadily for a quarter of an hour or so because nothing says “confidence” like waiting longer than you want to I had a bite. A proper bite too, not one of those float hesitations that could equally be attributed to debris, undertow, or divine mockery. 

This was followed by that brief moment of disbelief, then the satisfying weight of a fish that very much intended to stay where it was. A decent chub came to hand, glistening, solid, and utterly unaware that it had just become the first fish of 2026. I held it for a moment longer than necessary, partly out of admiration and partly to let the occasion sink in.

Naturally, Nic had yet to trouble the scorer. So, being the supportive mate that I am, I immediately sent him a WhatsApp voice message informing him of my success.

Predictably, this prompted Nic to abandon his swim shortly thereafter, citing a lack of bites and a general sense that the swim “wasn’t quite right”, which is angler-speak for the fish have failed to read the script. But if there was fish here he would have had a bite by now.

As Nic wandered downstream past me, fate intervened in the form of a sharp crack and a sudden, sickening lack of tension. My maggot catapult faithful servant of many winters (well this one) had chosen this moment to end its life dramatically, snapping its elastic mid-pult and consigning itself to the graveyard of defunct angling accessories. There was a brief silence, the sort normally reserved for fallen comrades, before Nic, bless him, produced a spare. Had he not, my session would have ended there and then, a victim of equipment failure rather than piscatorial inadequacy.

And that, sadly, was that. We fished on. And on. Nic fished his new swim with determination and increasing philosophical detachment. I trotted, fed, recast, and watched the river with the intense concentration of someone waiting for a kettle that has no intention of boiling. Not another bite materialised. The river level had dropped, the colour had bled away, and yes this is straight from the Angler’s Excuse Compendium, Chapter One but I’m quite sure it didn’t help.

Eventually, cold and realism crept in together as did the sleet. We packed up, hands numb, spirits oddly intact, already rewriting the morning into something far more productive than the bare facts might suggest. One fish. One snapped elastic. One perfectly good reason to go again.

Because that’s the thing about days like this. They’re tough. They’re cold. They’re often biteless. But they’re also exactly why we go. For the quiet, the company, the hope carried on a float drifting downstream. And occasionally, if the river is feeling generous, for a chub that makes the first fish of the year feel like an event worth writing about.

Even if no one believes how hard it was.

Warwickshire Avon - Frigorification and Folly

Now New Year’s Eve arrived in Bard’s country wearing hobnail boots and an icy grin, the sort of morning where Jack Frost doesn’t just visit, he moves in, rearranges the furniture, and helps himself to your milk. Overnight temperatures had plummeted to the point where even the dog (If I owned one that is) looked at the door, looked back at me, and silently agreed that this was not a day for unnecessary movement. 

The bed, meanwhile, had developed a powerful gravitational pull, the kind normally associated with small moons or large regrets. But alas, a busy day loomed, the rabble was assembling, and F1 Arcade Birmingham beckoned with all the subtlety of a flashing neon sign and the promise of noise.

The train wasn’t until midday, which in angling terms is practically a lifetime, and when I glanced out of the window the river looked absolutely criminally perfect. Mist hung low, the kind of mist that makes everything feel hushed and important, like you’re about to witness something meaningful or at the very least lose a decent fish. There is something deeply wrong with people who don’t like fishing in freezing conditions. It strips the whole thing back to essentials: cold hands, warm tea, and the vague hope that something with fins hasn’t read the same weather forecast.

I had a plan, which immediately marked it out as something the river would ignore entirely. The plan was chub. A proper one. Bread on the hook, mash in the swim, stick float trotting through a crease that had “chub” written all over it in large, smug letters. This local stretch is known for them milling about like elderly men outside a post office usually present, occasionally obliging, and always ready to make you believe you’re better at this than you actually are.

As has become the norm of late, I had the place entirely to myself. No canoeists, no trespassing dog walkers, no bloke telling you “there used to be some right big ones in there.” Just me, the river, and the sound of frost cracking underfoot. I fed mash for fifteen minutes, which in winter feels like a leap of faith bordering on religion, poured a cup of tea, and watched steam rise from both mug and river like some kind of low-budget atmospheric effect.

Eventually I couldn’t put it off any longer and ran the stick float down the swim. It went through beautifully almost too beautifully which should always ring alarm bells. Fifteen minutes later, right at the tail of the run, the float hesitated. Just a tiny check. I told myself it was tripping bottom, because anglers are optimists by nature and liars by necessity. Then it dipped properly. I struck. The rod bent. A fish was on.

Briefly.

After the first satisfying curve of carbon, it dropped off, leaving me staring at the end tackle with the kind of wounded disbelief usually reserved for politicians and weather apps. “Damn it,” I muttered, because tradition demands it. Then, as if to really underline the point, the same thing happened again. This time the fish stayed on fractionally longer, just long enough to make sure I was emotionally invested before disappearing back into the ether. Two bites. Two losses. That’s not unlucky that’s personal.

Still, I told myself, the mash had done its job. The chub were out of cover, milling, nosing about, probably laughing. And then… nothing. 

Trot after trot produced exactly the square root of sod all. After an hour of optimism slowly curdling into suspicion, I roved downstream to the second swim, a classic trotting glide that has, in the past, delivered some absolute clonkers. 

The mash dispersed beautifully, the float behaved impeccably, and forty-five minutes passed without so much as a bobble. Not even a courtesy knock. The river had gone silent, like a pub when someone mentions CrossFit.

On to the third swim, which I never really got on with. Some swims are like that. You can’t explain it, but they feel awkward, uncooperative, and vaguely judgmental. 

After a short, half-hearted attempt, it was back to the first swim, where surprise nothing further occurred. And yet, despite the blank, despite the cold, despite the increasingly numb fingers, it was utterly, gloriously worth it. Those conditions. That light. The sense that you were exactly where you were supposed to be, even if the fish hadn’t signed the same agreement.

The sun broke through briefly, as if to wave goodbye to 2025, and not a moment too soon. By early afternoon I was Birmingham-bound, a journey that increasingly feels like crossing into a different reality. I don’t venture into big cities much these days, and five minutes in confirmed why. 

Homelessness and beggars everywhere like many cities these days sadly, dodgy looking free hotel frequenters in groups, visible spice takers, and a masterclass in shoplifting witnessed twice in five minutes at a small Sainsbury’s where a panic button triggered a security response worthy of a bank heist movie. All very calm. Very normal apparently. Perfectly fine.

Salvation came in liquid form at The Colmore, my favourite Birmingham pub, where a couple of imperial stouts restored both warmth and faith in humanity. The DJ at F1 Arcade was, to my mild surprise, actually decent once or at least decent enough after stout number two. Engines roared, music thumped, and I found myself thinking fondly of stick floats and mist.

Thankfully, civilisation returned closer to home in Henley-in-Arden, where a lamb naga at the Curry Republic, courtesy of Raj and his excellent staff, provided the perfect full stop to the year. A few ales followed, because obviously they did, and 2025 quietly shuffled offstage.

No chub graced the net that morning. But the river had been beautiful, the tea hot, the cold honest, and the float had dipped twice. And sometimes, that’s enough. After all, if fishing was just about catching, most of us would have given up years ago and taken up something sensible. Like stamp collecting. Or lying.