Warwickshire Avon – Thornbacks and Thatch-Gallows

The Krispy Kreme doughnut shop which opened in Dublin last week has been forced to close its 24 hour drive-through service at night after noise complaints from neighbours. Krispy Kreme said that it had experienced unprecedented demand since opening its first Irish branch in Blanchardstown last Wednesday.

An hours queue by all accounts, with those with bulging bellies and angry faces just to get their fatty sugary fix, yes you really cannot make it up.

Apparently it made the decision to close the drive-through between the hours of 11.30pm and 6am in response to customers shouting and sounding their horns and annoying the locals while queuing outside the restaurant late at night.

Surely the only doughnut if you really want to get your fix is the freshly fried ones from the fairground not the overly sweet rubbish concoctions this company conjurers up, I’m the odd one out again it seems.

But queue for an hour, come on, unless you nothing better to do of course !!!!

But it doesn't stop there there were some freebies given out on the first day and there were people there hours, yes hours waiting to get their hands on the 12 quid a dozen jobbies.

Now Perch have similar traits, shoaled and queued up like us British do waiting for a tasty treat to swing by before grabbing what they can to get their fix.

I was hoping the rain the day before would add that much needed tinge of colour to the river which for a long time now has been very clear. Perch you see in a few spots I fish for them shy away in those sort of conditions but with a little bit of colour can indeed switch on to feed. There are certainly predators down this neck of the woods, oddly no Zander as far as I know, Pike being the dominate species, and some good’uns too.

I don’t fish for big river Perch that often, 1lb 13oz’s being my biggest on a live bait up to now with my still water PB being 2lb 11oz which was caught at the now shut Warwick Racecourse Reservoir that was one of those waters that would throw up some nice surprises.

The plan for this session was to fish a small live bait under a tiny small Pike bobber and sprinkle a few red maggots over the top to bring in the smaller prey fish in for a look and hopefully for the Perch to hopefully follow.

Before the session started I'd also put in to chopped worm and red maggots in a few likely looking Perch hideouts.

What a lovely morning, one of those Autumn dawns us anglers and early risers get to see. Mist off the water, the sun gradually rising, the Kingfisher on the hunt. The problem was the water was still as clear as it was last time I was here. The skies were blue as well which certainly wouldn't help the fishing.

Small live baits were not that easy to come by, plenty of fish but the dace and roach were on the whole would have been fine for Pike but a bit of a gobstopper for a Perch.

Perch can certainly swallow surprisingly large baits but that would mean I'd have to tackle up if a decent Pike came along. My Perch rod is 1.5TC, fine for small Pike but anything half decent I'd be outgunned.

That said the first fish was a Pike that nearly pulled the rod in because I'd took the eye off my float for a second. It gave a spirited fight and I didn't weigh it but it looked around 6 lb or so. I tried all the baited swims without even an enquiry but then decided to fish a peg I had to plough myself through to get to it. I did mean to bring my shears as it was overgrown last time I was here, but stupidly forgot them. To be fair the stingers are dying off now so it wasn't really a problem.

I cast next to some reeds and within 10 seconds or so the float started to bob and then started to go properly under. I was a little premature on the strike but I felt a fish on. I steered it away from the snags and it came towards me and I saw the flanks of a big Perch, the problem was I could see the fish in it's mouth and then we it saw me in the clear water it let go of it and went back to it's sanctuary.

So another bait went out and with 10 minutes the float did exactly the same, this time though as soon as I struck in to it I realised this was no Perch but a big Pike, it carted to my left and there was nothing at all I could do about it, in-fact after tightening up the clutch as much as I dared it was pulling me along the slippy wooden staging then the hook pulled.

Hmmm might need a re-think....

I thought I was going home with a pretty poor session but then taking a while to catch a small lively again the very same spot within 5 minutes the float was off again, this time it went from left to right and it eventually submerged.

A half decent fight again but I knew it was a Perch this time, it wasn't the monster and was certainly not the fish I had on earlier but a nice proud fish all the same. Not huge fish at 1lb 10oz but an encouraging sign that's for sure.

I'm sure with the rivers like there are maybe the hour heading in to dusk would have been the better option, but hey ho. Got to fish within the time I have available to me, I'll be back soon though, I'm sure there are some lunking lurkers to be caught, I'm sure of it.