Warwickshire Avon – Smelt and Snot Rockets Pt.7

Researchers analysing a jar full of white powder removed from 3,200 year-old Egyptian tomb have determined that it’s cheese, the oldest ever found and eating it will kill you now and may have killed people in the past.

What is the curse of this mummified mozzarella?

The tomb of Ptahmes was rediscovered in 2010 and whatever was left by the looters was removed, including broken jars containing a “solidified whitish mass” and a piece of canvas. That mysterious mass eventually ended up in the lab of one Mister Enrico Greco, who dissolved a spoonful, removed the proteins and analysed them with liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry.

The results showed peptides identifying it as a dairy product made from cow, sheep or goat milk. Other indicators plus the presence of a cloth that could be wrapped around a ball eliminated all other possibilities and Greco held up the jar, faced the camera and said, “Cheese!”

Resisting the spirit of Wallace and Grommit to taste the ancient cheese, the researchers continued researching and found that the cheese from the tomb was cursed.

The powder contained the bacteria Brucella melitensis which causes brucellosis, a disease transmitted from animals (cows, sheep and goats are on the list) through unpasteurized dairy products that can cause fever, sweats, malaise, anorexia, headaches, joint and muscle pain, fatigue and depression.

Oh, and it can be fatal.

Now talking about cursed camembert, a bit of a change for this session !!!! A sheltered swim, an undercut bank, some depth away from the turmoil. Upstream their usual hideout, a bubbling nubilous cauldron.

A Pike would feel comfortable here, sit-wait and ambush.

A quick afterwork session, to try and get a float to bob or a quiver tip to go wham !!!!

Despite being under ones blog orders to fish for those slimy snot rockets with teeth during the month of February this was, again a bit of double dipping, after some recent rain, the levels well up, now on the fall, the greeny tinge the water exhibited favoured a Chevin not a Pike.

You see big Chub reside not far away from this swim, and at this moment, likely to be at their winter fullest.

Now the humble Chub have unseen pharyngeal teeth tucked away at the back of their huge mouths which are weapons to rival the pike. They are partial to a deadbait too, in-fact I’ve used lamprey and whitebait successfully on the Avon to specifically target the Chub. Also from time to time I’ve caught them on roach deadbaits when targeting Zander such their lust for blood because they are carnivores after all.

A Roach dead under a float on one rod and a lump of tomb rivaling cheesepaste on the other, again two hours is all I’d have before the dairy makers got involved and the bell was rung.

It couldn’t come soon enough, you see….

....its not been a good time of late, some friends and work colleagues having their contracts kyboshed in these times of instability. An obvious knock of effect to me, my mind and well-being, moral given a kick in the balls, my shoulder on watch. Luckily the jobbing fraternity particularly come together in times like this and the network is notified, and the carrier pigeons let go after pointing in certain directions.

Fishing for me is the much needed avenue to prod and poke and at the potential tides of turn.

A mind of nothing, normality restored for the short term, sanity at a simmer.

Anyway back to the session, a mind blowing 13 degrees C at midday, this was a pleasant time to be out on the bank I must say. The smell of spring round the corner, skies clear on the most part and the sun prominent most of the time, long may the fair weather continue. Out of the sun, still a little chilly in the wind, but wow, was a difference some nice weather does for the mind.

Anyway back to the fishing, I could see from the colour of the water the Pike wouldn't be biting and sure enough the float remained motionless.

The quiver tip though, that was the opposite, a 4lb 2oz Chevin came to the net quite quickly, 2 un-missable bites, which yeap, I missed and then I hooked another fish which was heading towards the snags and the fluorocarbon broke below the loop knot for the hooklink, WTF, not happy about that, felt a good fish as well.

Don't think I've ever had that before. A cormorant was spotted feeding upstream but then that seems part of the course in the local waters. Sadly I had so leave to pick the eldest up from school as I would have banked more fish, I'm sure of it.