An act of meddlesomeness….

Am I mad ?, a disappointing reccy session at Guy’s Cliffe the previous week and yet I left my warm and overly mammiferous bed at first light to trudge up a thicket riddled path to hopefully fulfil my inquisitiveness and find a roach sanctorum. To be honest I probably set myself up for a blank session as it’s been bitterly cold, fishing shouldn’t be easy though should it. I’m not one to park feet from my fishing peg from a carp plethoric pool. I prefer adventure and possible untapped big fish fortuity. (well, within <15 minutes of my house anyway ).

Old Milverton is ideal for this as a fisherman seeking detachment and remoteness from everyday life. The hamlet is situated on the bend of the Warwickshire Avon, situated upstream of the parish of Guy’s Cliffe where the swims are denser and the city sniffers more prevalent. Here the northern reaches are more barren and inhabited and don’t suit the sluggard. The only issue is the road noise from the A46, it ain’t the best.

Wintertime seemed to be the best time to tackle this stretch, I love to seek solitude, but if that means tackling 7ft nettles in the process that’s a no goer. With a couple of tearaways who need constant attention and with a limited time to fish my time is precious.

I was also hoping a longish trek in the cold would help with the grog-blossom, port and stilton the night before wasn’t an ideal belly filler for a fishing trip the next day and to be honest I didn’t feel the best but I battled on. I dreamt of big roach and dace utopia ( btw a good series on 4oD if you haven’t watched it. ) and was hoping I would find it.

Anyway back to the fishing, compared to last week I scaled down for this session, a smaller cage feeder, lower diameter line and a finer gauge hook (Kamasan B983). Lobs were exchanged for dendrobena tails and once again maggots would also be used as hookbait. As the clarity of water would likely to be pretty good I also decided to bring some 12mm diameter bread discs. Liquidised bread and maggot filled the feeder. To give myself even more chance of catching a fish I brought along a trotting set-up to try and find the fish if they were not accepting of a static bait.

The second swim produced a nice Roach of about 5oz’s on worm and the first trot through the swim on bread I caught another Roach of similar size. The swim went quiet for 15 minutes and as soon as the 15 mph winds were becoming unpleasant I decided to look for some other swims downstream. Most swims I tried produced fish but the static bait easily out fished the moving bait. In the last swim I just used the feeder rod and had 10 fish in half an hour or so, the biggest Roach went 8oz's.

Strangely I didn’t miss many bites, the B983’s doing a grand job. No big Roach for this morning’s session, or Perch for that matter, but compared to last week certainly encouraging. It’s cold again this week and with the close season getting nearer I might have a session for Chub, I’ve neglected them of late and need a proper bend in the rod.