Warwickshire Avon - Holy Polony

With a smattering of rain recently there was a much welcomed tinge of colour to the river, it even looked up a gnat’s nadger, fantastic. There wasn’t anything scientific for this session I had come and geared up for Barbel. Two rods, some dampened sonubaits cheesy garlic pellets and some hemp and fishmeal groundbait for the feeder. Bait on the hair was a big lump of garlic spam, tactics well there were none really, just sit back and wait for the rod to properly hoop over.

Spam (the garlic variety particularly) has always been one of my favourite baits for Barbel, they just seem to love the stuff.....

In this short 3 hour session I planned to fish to dusk to give me a better chance of a fish, certainly the areas of the Avon I frequent most captures especially the bigger fish have been in heavily coloured water or when the light has started to go, the smaller fish I’ve found happy to feed in any conditions but the better stamp of fish definitely feed more confidently when they are less likely to be seen. One of the prime times is as soon as the bats start leaving their roosts to feed on everything flying; now therein lies the problem as their echolocation could do with a brush-up as they are forever hitting my line, the amateurs. Stick with it though, ignore the short twangs and knocks, and just wait for the rod to leave the rest, the classic and unmissable Barbel bite.

My PB Barbel is 11lb 11oz which is half decent especially when it was caught in a narrow snaggy swim and put up a cracking fight, but there are certainly Warwickshire Avon fish far bigger than that to be had. I’ve mentioned it before but last season I’d hooked a Chub in the shallows and whilst playing the fish a Barbel swam out from under an overhanging tree and proceeded to meander upstream amongst the thick streamer weed, that fish took my breath away, a real sight to behold, such an impressive specimen. 

Best laid plans and all that because despite fishing till 10.30pm all I caught were Chub, lots of them too so I actually ran out of bait, they loved the stuff. Even doubling the hair length they would still eventually hook themselves. I must have had a least 10 or 11 Chub and even removing the feeder on one of the rods and fishing the meat rolling style in the flow didn’t make any difference I still caught Chub, they were properly on it this evening. The biggest was a mediocre 3lb 10oz or so. The swim was littered with plump black slugs so I did think about using one of those for the hook, but Chub love them, and I didn't want a Chub.

Luckily Ibiza’s Cafe Del Mar the weekend will give me valuable thinking time, I’m Chubbed out