Warwickshire Avon - Gonks and Gingambobs

A late night, hot air balloons, a fairground and fireworks. A midnight bedtime didn't put Sam off waking up early to go down the river, like me he cannot wait for his next trip. So a pint of maggots, a float rod, the simplest of tactics. For a 7 year old bites are what keeps him happy, what keeps him from mischief, what keeps his mind focused.

The verbal diarrhea continues to flow mind you, but the inner working of a 7 year old and their thought process and their off the wall questions is always nice to be a part of. A break from his noisy brother, two anglers talking all things fish.

We hot footed it to an area we know where fishing in the summer is not somewhere for a rest, it's an area where small fry are in numbers, in big quantities and a dangle of the float in most swims brings instant results.

Now we were here for Gudgeon, and one particular 'Gonk' swim they are generally a larger stamp. Fish over the gravel in and around the weeds and lilies they start small when you've located the shoal then they generally they get bigger.

Eventually after wading through fish after fish, getting bite after bite we had everything but gudgeon. We switched swims 3 times before receiving a more confident bite and a gudgeon was on. Strangely they got smaller after this one, not bigger. It going 0.62oz on the dealer scales.

An enjoyable roving session though and the stretch to ourselves. Seven dinky species as pictured caught, gudgeon, dave, chub, minnow, roach, bleak and perch. The best fish a chublet not pictured and quite a few Perch were caught and the biggest went 6oz's. Kingfishers, dragonflies and some of the most vibrant butterflies you've ever seen, a great place to spend a couple of hours.