The Brook 23.02.13

The lure of the brook was difficult to ignore, I just love the place. I'm usually the only angler fishing it and it's quite a wild stretch of the Warwickshire Avon which can be quite characterless in places. It has a weir, fast narrow stretches, deep holes, slack areas and lots of fallen trees giving cover. I've had near double figure Barbel, 5lb+ Chub,big perch,decent roach and even eels.

With the levels settling down due to lack of rain it was starting to go clear too. Tactics today were hair rigged bread discs with liquidised bread in the feeder. Not sure if it helps but I flavour the liquidised bread with Sonubaits cheezy, hemp and garlic, it certainly smells nice so I expect the fish will like it.

I think other local bloggers have had the same results on the Warwickshire Avon, lots of Chub between 3 and 4 pound, 5 pounders scarce and 6 pounders a rarity. For me fishing bread for Chub always bring savage bites, bites that you cannot miss really. I use ready made 15" long hair rig fitted with a Korum quickstop, the hook is only a size 12 but does a suitable job of hooking the fish especially when the bread discs engulf the hook, disguising it but allowing the hook to easily pass through the bread on the strike.

I had a fish on the bank from the first swim, only smallish so I didn't weigh it, a good fight though especially in the flow. The river was down a meter or so from last week but still flowing at a decent pace, it was bitterly cold though, even though it was above freezing with the wind chill, it felt like -5.

I tired a few more swims without success so returned to the first swim and sure enough an unmissable bite resulted in a 4lb 2oz Chub.

Not long now before the close season is upon us again, so will be somewhere this weekend again. I really need to try somewhere else, however the lure of the Brook however might be too hard to resist.

My Reuben Heaton flyweight mk2 have given up the ghost, it fell apart early this season and I put it back together with electrical tape, it became more and more difficult to zero the scales and I wasn't confident in their accuracy so from now on I'll be using their 9000 series digital scales. They are compact and ideal for roving sessions and from the testing I've done, good accuracy too.