Warwickshire Avon - Caterwaulings and Corinths

With a busy life like I have any fishing opportunity needs to be grabbed with both hands. These days a couple of hours here and there appease the short sessions of solitude I need to keeps ones mind in check.

So with the kids wiped out after a week of roaming around 7 acres, feeding all manner of animals and picking tomatoes and cucumbers in seemingly the worlds biggest private greenhouse.

Also swimming in a lovely pool we'd kindly had access to, an early night for them meant a couple of cobbled hours fishing for me. Now with one area I'd been targeting Barbel not producing for me and others I wanted to try a completely new area that I'd caught Barbel in the past but not fished it for a while.

Now when I left here with Sam the day before I put some bait down in one swim and I'd top that swim up before fishing in to dusk.

An area of thick cover where big fish can hide and take cover before venturing out when the bats start to venture out. Here when the levels are up on the Warwickshire Avon they can be over the banks here. Summer levels going to winter levels all very quickly indeed. The colour going from clear to tainted overnight.

Now there are some decent Chub here but least time of the year chublets dominate. To avoid them I use long hairs, however they still give the bait a proper doing over and an eventually hook themselves. Once the fish is caught, as the waterway is quite small it can ruin the swim so it is a must really.

When I got bankside the banks were littered with slugs, some huge ones as well, some going nearly 6 inches. A great big Chub bait for sure and noted for another session. Now I couldn't find my hardened hookbaits so I had to use some Dynamite Baits Shrimp and Krill big river busters. They smell great but are softer than I'd like.

As soon as the bait hit the deck in the swim I had the quickest bite I think I'd ever received a violent take and withing seconds a fish was on. As soon as I felt the fish I knew it was a chublet, damn they could be troublesome.

And they were indeed within the space of an hour I caught 4 fish and also received some of the biggest pulls and twangs I think I'd ever had when fishing for Barbel. So strong in-fact after a couple of strong pulls they managed to pull the bait from the hair. They were determined to get the bait no matter the consequences. 

Sadly 15 minutes past dusk with light all but gone I decided to call it a day, if I do come back I'll fish at least hardened hookbaits so I know that at least the bait is still attached.