Warwickshire Avon – Uppers and Underboobs

Ibiza was a good as ever again this year, and as usual for my umpteenth trip we crammed in lots and lots in 3 nights and two days. Apart from the usual Mambo’s to watch the sunset, Ocean beach for an afternoon chill we managed a wide variety of music, Techno with Sven Väth and Solomun at a cocoon night at Pacha with it’s amazing sound system with low frequencies you can feel.

Groove Armada and Purple Disco Machine in the old Space venue with Glitterbox for a something a little less pace.

Then an unexpected and rather awesome BBC Radio 2 gig Children of the 80s night at the hard rock hotel in Playa de Bossa hosted by Gary Davies really did make the annual pilgrimage and expense worthwhile. Live performances from Tony Hadley, Carol Decker, Bucks Fizz and Bonnie Tyler as well as break-dancers and a trio of DJ’s mixing 80’s classics made us realise it ain’t just about repetitive beats this Island and people of all ages are up for a good time.

We managed Ibiza old town for a huge Paella, decent wine, and a chill out, You certainly cannot knock Ibiza, variety in abundance and something for everyone and there are family orientated resorts on the island such as St Eulalia, where you wouldn't even know the delights that Ibiza has to offer for the like-minded.

Now what isn’t for all is the fads that seems to come and go as quickly as they come in, for this season in Ibiza it for the follow the crowd youngsters seemed to be the underboob.

I thought WTF that's all about at first but it was clear it was a ‘thing’, but apparently after some extensive research celebs can’t get enough of upside-down cleavage, so forget boobs spilling from the top of your bra, it’s the opposite.

Where you do you look ? how does one lift ones arm to scratch the back of your head, as you’d be done for a public decency offence.

On seconds thoughts not sure why I’m moaning, but it was just one of the dilemmas I faced just to confirm, yeap God I’m getting old. Leave the youngsters just get on with it.

There are still a load of old duffers like me that visit the island every year, no need to hang ones dancing shoes up yet Mick, keep doing what you enjoy doing and forget the rest. Now talking about variety, as you know I like it in my fishing, and say, only fishing for Barbel for instance, really would get more bored rather quickly. Ok you’ve got me with the canal Zander quest, but as I’m not really a still water advocate myself, it’s sort of forced upon me.

Barbel though, really are one of those fish I love to fish for because of the powerful and unrelenting fight they give. I don’t fish for them that often though, hence why a PB of 11lb 11oz is entirely beatable giving the size of the fish that do frequent the Warwickshire Avon these days.

This session was back to an area where my PB came from, it’s not an area renowned for lots of fish unlike an area that was unavailable for the evening, but there is fish here that’s for sure and some nice Chub too and that was the reason why I was here, there are some nice Chevins to be had. Now with the river gin clear and very low, the fishing is tough here and the bigger fish go in to hiding.

They are there though and just need tempting by trying to get a bait under some cover where they are likely stationed up. Or try and persuade them to venture out and feed on a huge Smörgåsbord of food that they would be stupid to refuse.

Unlike many areas of the Avon this area has some pace to it, for a couple of geographical and feature  reasons and therefore the oxygen levels should be about the best I was going to get. To be fair it was similar conditions when I caught my PB and that fish went back fighting fit. As per the usual when caught give it a rest and get water moving over it's gills it's returned as good as when it was caught.

So a quick session this, so I’d fish for some small fish initially over the gravel bottom and then bait drop a combination of casters, maggot, hemp, broken boilies and small pellets an hour before dusk and then fish a bait over the top. Usually if there is a Chub feeding it’s just a matter of time before the tentative pulls and tugs develop in to a proper fight.

It was an odd session to be honest, lots of gonks were caught from one particular swim but after a rove around to try and find some fish after the bait droppers had gone down, not even a nibble.

The last hour was spent fishing in to dusk where I'd expect at least a chub to start giving the baits a nudge and pull, but zilch. If I stayed properly in to dark like many areas of the Avon in these conditions maybe it would have been a different story but I had a bed to go to.