Flour Power !!

Friday has always been precious for me, why you ask, well as an early riser my working week stops at noon, and it always has done. Stuck in-front of a CAD screen on ones backside for hours on end is enough to send anyone barmy so a Friday afternoon off to do what I want keeps me sane. Usually it’s spent with the Wife to make the most of our childfree time, but not today as I was told to go fishing whilst she goes shopping for a new coat, result!!!! .

After whinging about the cancellation of our date day and having the proverb ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ flashing before my eyes I agreed. Within minutes and with the Wife’s eyes glazed over I was planning where I was going to fish.

The previous day I managed to pick-up some fresh Warburton’s Blue for a quid so that sorted of dictated the species I was after and with the river close season a sunset away and red fins on my mind I decided to do some roving on the Warwickshire Stour. The various areas of the Stour I fish have plenty of character, surprisingly deep in places, with fast gravel runs, holes and gullies. It’s no Warwickshire Avon where specimen fish are concerned but one thing it has got though is half decent Roach. You need to find them though as they tend to be in tiny pockets throughout the river.

I want the bait to be on the bottom when the water is still cold and the Stour depth can change so much over a small stretch it’s not ideal for trotting. When the levels are low the flow is painfully pedestrian and when in flood far too fast to trot a float. Parts of the Stour are regularly match fished and that’s where the pole comes in to its own as you can hold position. I’m not a match fisherman, I don’t own a pole and the last thing I want to be doing after sitting on my numb backside all week is to add to the numbness.

As a past sufferer of sciatica and an exercise avoider, roving around is made for me as it gets my joint moving. I rarely use a chair for my fishing sessions so that allow me to travel light and cover more ground. If I avoid the match days on the Sunday and due to the popularity of pigs with fins, apart from sheep and birds it’s a few miles of river all to myself.

The rig used is simple, a link swivel is tied to the main line and covered by a buffer bead. A size 14 Korum 15” quickstop hair rig is baited with a couple of 12mm dried punched bread discs and a small shot is placed a couple of inches from the hook so the naturally buoyant bait wafts enticingly just off the bottom. To suit the rivers flow a few AAA shot are pinched on to the link ledger loop. The beauty of fitting a link swivel is if the bread isn’t doing it’s thing it allows me to quickly change to a larger hook and lobworm tail for example.

Loose feed was a scopex flavoured walnut sized ball of liquidised bread, any more than that the fish seem to do a fat legger, follow the bait downstream and then take forever to return to the swim. You can practically jump from one side of the river to the other so I use one of my trusty centrepins, which features in nearly all my fishing these days.

I alternated between worm and bread and had a great day, lost a big Chub to a snag too. Gudgeon, Ruffe, Perch and Roach succumbed to the worm and the Roach and Chub the bread.

Certainly is a healthy river because I caught in all of the 8 or so swims I tried, the biggest Roach was only 11oz's but there are bigger to be had. Same the season is over, I'll be back.