Warwickshire Avon – Pussies and Paradoxography

Brief accounts of prodigies and wonders within Phlegon of Tralles’s Book of Marvels dated from the 2nd century AD, feature ghost stories, monstrous births, strange animal like centaurs, hermaphrodites, giant skeletons and prophesying heads are clearly tongue-in-cheek and offer no veracity to the authors claims and yet strangely at the time many wanted to believe….

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have found it hard to believe any Barbel >15lb would live in the relatively small areas of Warwickshire Avon I drown ones maggots, heck I’ve even seen a Wild Boar, yes really.

But saw the big Barbel I did and despite a few attempts to catch it via the Gluttonous Chub Poka-Yoke rig, it didn’t grace my net.

A fellow blogger has managed some catfish off the Severn, some weird stuff and mythical stuff do exist that’s for sure,

seals, SEAls, SEALS yeah right….

Ok we’re not talking a Loch Ness Monster here, this is just an overly large fish that stood head and shoulders above the humdrum which, let’s be honest, they are easy to catch. Sadly I don’t fish those club waters any more but it really did make a myth in to reality.

A little like the works cat that has made this bush its home, wherever Barbel feel comfortable they generally hang around till it’s forcefully moved on or its haven has been removed. This cat has been in residence for well over 18 mths now, pet or vagrant, I’ve not a clue but I always give it a thumbs up when passing, a few beef space raiders if I’m not down them before I meander past.

There are some decent Barbel to be had on this stretch though and my best so far, a near double was caught in January can easily be bettered, hence why I’m here again, especially after the loss of a decent fish the middle of last week.

An adjustment I made to the rig as I didn't want to lose another Barbel to the upstream weeds again was something I saw in Steve Stayner's Barbel Obsession book where on a section about fishing tight to snags he moulded a bit of plasticine around a hair grip, which looked ideal for the running set-up I use, I had all the items required too, so easy peasy. 

If one went snag bound again, hopefully would be the change required.

Enough of the guff, back to the short session....?

I rocked up at 7.00pm, Martin already in one of his favorite swims, the swim I wanted to fish occupied, but I know for a fact, you can be bite-less all day, but when the light starts to go, the fish start moving.

A quick natter with Martin who was doing his usual trick of, yeap you guessed it catching fish. The tally at the end was 3 barbel and 8 chub I think.

Anyway the swim I wanted to fish luckily would be occupied at 8.30pm, so I settled in the next swim down.

As suspected a small Chub and a few other rattles rather event less.

With an hour left the swim was free I lost the Barbel last week, so with a bait positioned in between the streamer weed, pva bag of freebies, it was time to sit back and relax.

Sun down, 15 minutes before published dusk, a few tentative pulls develop in to an unmistakable Barbel bite. As fish took a liking to the 15mm squid and prawn pellet and was powering off downstream. I love using a centrepin as the control over a powerful Barbel is superb.

I tuned the fish and this time it was going upstream as the fish did last week. Again, some pressure to get it out the reeds and this time I managed to keep it out most of them.

Netted and recovered in the net it went 7lb 4oz.

Not the biggest of fish, but got to love a Barbel.

I went home happy.