Warwickshire Avon - Keffels and Kettledrums

A weekend of excesses to celebrate the Wife's birthday I was back bankside. The lamb dish was the highlight, done three-ways, even the sweetbreads had a texture to die for. The creamy potatoes and copious amount of wine were just part of the overindulgence, fishing took a back seat and rightly slow.

A notable drop in temperature overnight and with the water falling after rising after a good dumping of rain, I'm sure the bigger fish will be thinking about feeding. The gear was already sorted so this short session session in to dusk would be to try and winkle out a Barbel. Now they have been rather elusive of late, an Otter put a kibosh on things the time before last and also despite being in the swim I was fishing, they were cagey to say the least.

With a little more water on though they can let their guard down, well that's what I was hoping. A tinge of colour giving more confidence for a Barbus to venture out from where it's holding up to hoover up the delicacy I'd got for it.

On the hair for this session some garlic meat attached to a longish hair. Now this particular brand has an inedible casing that resists all but the most persistent Chub. Even eels can give it a good going over and yet some of the meat will still be attached to the rather unattractive orange skin. When you fish short session like it do, getting one up on the fish can make or break sessions.

This meat you can leave out and ignore the plucks, tugs and pulls and you basically wait for a proper bite only a Barbel can give.

Now when I got bankside the rivers wasn't as expected, certainly not as high as expected and only a tinge of colour. Before settling in to a swim I decided to fish a few swims to try and get a quick bite.The first swim was chock full of streamer weed but there is a nice gully in between the, now  I've had plenty of Barbel here in-fact it's one of my banker swims but after a couple of firm bites from chub and getting caught in the weed on the retrieve, I decided to move on, I wouldn't want to lose a fish here. October is the time when it's died back a bit.

So on to the next two swims, both biteless I moved to the weir. After ten minutes with the bait being out a proper bite on the rod top and a fish was on. At first I thought it was a small Chub, but it was a greedy Jack that decided it would like the lump of meat, great !!!!

So the last swim in to dusk, a swim I spotted a few Barbel, one easily a double the bait went out. As the light was starting to go I watched a couple of small mice feeding on the hemp that was left on the platform from another angler. That was the highlight because despite me thinking when the bats were out a bite would be forthcoming, sadly it wasn't.

Hmmm, back to the drawing board, I'm planning to give the Barbel a rest now, maybe a river carp would be better to target at this time of year. Lets see. At least it was nice to be out, and that can work wonders for ones mind.