Warwickshire Avon – Ebullience and Epulation

The late ‘Ruddles’ the Golden Lab was such a character, so obedient, quiet, slept well and was a joy to take to the pub and on holiday.

Even the malting of hair was largely forgotten about, he was that easy to look after.

He had to have his feeding time like clockwork, bit like the dawn and dusk Tench, that appear in the summer and then become elusive.

Certainly this time of year, no better time to catch them.

However I remember a New Years Eve party we hosted at the Father-In-Laws he even wasn’t fazed by the loud fireworks we were setting off. Then again as we were otherwise occupied with rockets, single ignitions and alcohol, he’d helped himself to half the buffet which consisted of pork pies, sausage and pizza.

His stomach swelled to such a size he couldn’t even get up the stairs….

The morning, don’t remind me, I can still see the resulting mess now, not pleasant.

Would the Tench be getting their heads down feeding properly again, I need to find that feeding spell because at the minute my results for this Bloggers Challenge have been mediocre.

Last time I tried for them on this lily riddled stretch of the Warwickshire Avon I blanked, what was encouraging though was eventually after feeding a second swim for a couple of hours eventually some tell-tale pinhead bubbles started to appear.

Sadly family duties took priority and I had to leave….

Either they were feasting on the bed of bait I put down or they were grubbing around for bloodworm as in my mind no question, there were Tinca in the swim.

Again I had a small window to fish, so it was no messing around….

Early start….

Rod made up, Drennan Insert, lift method.

Some dark groundbait, hemp, small pellets and the odd grain of corn, a sprinking of dead red maggots.

Sleeper rod for any passing Bream or Carp, PVA Bag, halibut pellet.

No time to waste, let’s get fishing….

What a stunning morning and a nice time to be out. On route, stop at the bridge, peer overhead a double plus carp spotted sunning itself, river clear as gin.

It's weedy down here but because it is match fished some of the swims are often raked so I set station in the swim I fished the previous time and also fed the swim adjacent to it that had a gap between the lilies. I'd pop to that swim from time to time to see if I could see any bubbles.

After feeding the swim, eventually signs of movement on the float, the float dotted down to a small bit of red showing, oh and what a great way to fish, centrepin, lift method, as a visual indication, when a bite is received nothing better.

Float pops up 3 to 4 inches, strike, a fish is on....

So the first fish a bream, not a bad one either, just over 3lb.

I fully expected the Tench to move in eventually if they were around but throughout the morning session it was clear it was a bream day.

There are huge quantities of small fish here, ground bait is a waste of time, as the shoal hits it and then Perch hit the shoal, lots of commotion.

Now talking of commotion, the method feeder on the sleeper worked brilliantly, so much so I could have fished another rod more effectively than the float.

As after an initial small Chub, after the 3 or 4th bream they were getting bigger, biggest 4lb 8oz. Considering I don't really fish for them I'm sure some 6, 7 and above must be about. You can see why they have matches here, I amassed well over 30lb without even trying.

No bubbles appeared in the neighbouring swim, and another bream caught I called it at day.

Highlight of the day, a nice bream to register on the score board, lowlight, bust my bleeding landing net thread, the rest of it, is still in the handle. Hopefully that is salvageable, we'll see.

I'll get one of the handy clay modellers on it.