Warwickshire Avon - Freeloaders and Famgrasps

So as a taxpayer I was prepared to join the orderly queue down at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Frogmore Cottage to try out their newly installed £5,000 William Holland copper bath. Part of the £2.4 million refurbishment the bath apparently takes around 120 man hours and hand beaten in to its unique shape. Now where do I sign, I’m good at wielding hammers and sounds a half decent hourly rate to me, and it means I can ditch the job that means sitting on one derriere for a stupid amount of time.

I used to suffer quite badly with sciatica you see, in-fact 6 mths of hell where I had to use a kneeling chair for work and experiment with all manner of drugs and treatments to keep the pain manageable. At the time in those dark days I certainly couldn’t have hopped in and out of Megan’s and Harry’s deep bath mind you.

I remembered one particular day where I’d managed to get in to my B&Q effort to try and get some relief. When I’d had enough, I carefully teased myself out and was headed to the bedroom when my nerve got trapped like I’d never felt pain like I’d never had before. I collapsed in to a heap on the floor and it took me a good half an hour to get up from it. Young James Denison is suffering with this ailment at the minute and I wish him a speedy recovery.

Luckily following a recommendation I discovered the wonderful hands, arms and elbows of a buxom Australian chiropractor. After a few sessions her rather physical manipulation, pulling, prodding and pain put me on the straight and narrow, and touch wood I’ve kept sciatica at bay ever since. But there is a reason for that, I’m far more active these days, fishing helps certainly because I prefer roving and I rarely take a seat for my fishing sessions.

This planned short session in to dusk was like that, some double dipping, in-fact three different set-ups where I’d try to increase my Gudgeon weight, try for Barbel in an area where I’d not seen one for ages but was once home to my PB, before I beat in recently, oh and also a Zander. Now Zander, you say, well yes, this was from a location I’d not even tried for them, but two different sources gave me the same information despite those hush hush words being shared at least 3 years apart.

The last conversation was in Martyn’s tackle shop just down the road. You see over a cup of coffee a local angler was sharing his best spots that could aid my species challenge after Martyn asked for his advice to help with the dilemma I was in. A river Tench ? where can I catch a decent Rudd ?.

“If you’re after Zander, you need to try ********* the second swim by the ________, always fish there, well there was last year, some good’un too”

“Errr, ok, yeah I’ve heard rumours of fish there before, thanks I’ll give it a go, ta”

So enough of the preamble how did it go ?

What an odd session it was, for the first part of the session I was roving to find some Gudgeon to try ad increase the weight recorded for the Bloggers challenge. That part of it went quite well with a whole variety of small fish caught. The gonks were obliging as well and I increased the weight for the chart of 0.84 ounces. 

The last swim before moving on is mainly shallow, not much more than a foot deep but there is a nice overhanging tree where it is a bit deeper and darker. The link ledger with a couple of red maggots went out and within seconds something was on to it.

After receiving a couple of plucks then a pull on the quiver tip I struck. I initially thought I had hooked a decent Chub because the drag was being tested, but then it was a weird fight and eventually I could see the fish, a Zander, a reasonable one as well, maybe 3lb or so, but it was foul hooked in the bottom of the dorsal fin.

Now I’d dumped my tackle off at the final peg before just taking bait and my rod so I didn’t have a landing net with me, damn. I teased the fish in and manged to get it to the margin but then as I went to grab it after holding the line, and it went on one last run and the hook pulled out from the fin. A bit of an eye opener though, an area that has Zander after albeit not where I told it was, just goes to show, I wasn’t being told porkies and yet I thought I knew this area intimately.

The last hour in to dusk was in the swim I’d been told about but sadly nothing doing, nothing took the deadbait and one quite powerful bite on the chunk of spam that took some line and the ratchet activated. It didn’t connect though, I assume it was a gluttonous bait snatching Chevin. 

Since the rain we’d had temporary boosted the levels the river here is now back to being summer levels, very shallow in most areas and also not much happening. The ground is also back to being bone dry again, encouraging signs for a healthy river though, its chock full of small fish. I’ll be back in the autumn no doubt, when the Zander start hunting properly.