Warwickshire Avon - Bobbers and Brephophagists

Weird as a specialist angler isn't it, you sort of get that feeling through your bones what would likely be biting, what might start bobbing the float. It's the combination of a few things I suppose, when you gaze at the sky, breathe in the fresh clean air and feel the cold through your skin. The anticyclonic gloom seemed stay with us this week prior to this session, dark, gloomy and lots of  moisture in the air, it screamed perch to me.

Now thus far for the Bloggers Challenge I've only registered a Perch with a gnats nadger over a pound and to be honest, that's easily beatable here at this quiet section of the Warwickshire Avon. In the winter there are bait fish in numbers and predators that follow.

I've never properly fished for Sergeants here to be fair, preferring to fish for the Pike that share the same space and make up much of the predator biomass, so much so, another predator, the Zander don't get a look'in. 

Maybe they don't get on or something, that or they have been bullied out preferring other areas where there isn't competition for the dace, roach and bleak eye-candy. I wanted a nice easy relaxing morning session but with the weather mild, Sam the tangleator would join be as well so it was countdown to verbal diarrhoea commencement.

The swim chosen had some cover to my left and out in front a large open body of water where when the river is in its usual winter level it's almost static. With Sam occupying himself float fishing for whatever came along, I'd fish a running rig adjacent to some cover with a chopped lobworm massacre with an added extra of a sprinkling of red maggots.

Now I've seen first hand the pulling power of chopped worm when Dan and I fished the canal where a tough day for canal Zander turned in to a great day for Perch when Dan had a secret stash of worms ready to be culled when we were starring down the barrel of a blank. His scissors made light work of the wrigglers and when dropped down the edge half an hour later this dead bit of canal turned in to perch soup.

The first dangle of a lobworm fitted to his dropshot rig was snapped up within seconds and within half an hour that happened quite a few times, to be honest I was amazed just how effective it was to draw in to the fish that were clearly not up for a feed, up for the chase. Like many specimen fish dusk and dawn is probably the best time to fish for perch and if nothing was succumbing for this trip I intended to come back myself for a short afterwork session to try and fish just as the light was going to hopefully intercept when the bigger fish would likely switch on.

They are predators after all though and recently I'd had a big perch >2lb grab, but then let go a bleak on the retrieve of a float a lure I'm sure would well be worth trying in an among some of the snaggy swims where they would likely be holding up ready to snatch. 

Now the 'Ned' rig looked ideal and it was a technique I'd not tried before despite it being round for a while so I bought some Korum Snapper Buoyant Squirmz ready rigs which I was eager to try out. I don't lure fish nearly enough and yet love the way of fishing, it's me to a tee, well roving and travelling light, what's not to like. The buoyant body of the lure sits upright in the water even when it's static, so effectively attracting fish even when the rod is motionless. 

Anyway back to this session at hand, the Ned nudging is for another time !!!!

After prising Sam from his bed we headed off to river and got there for sunrise. After trudging through the mud we got to the swim and there were fishing topping everywhere. The looked like a few decent size bream rolling as well, hopefully on to good session.

After the smelt rod went out, some worms were sacrificed and the concoction with some red maggots was deposited in the swim to my left which had some cover. Then an air injected lobworm placed carefully placed over the top and a bobbin and alarm was used for bite indication. Sam was manning the float rod and had already managed a couple of bleak before I sorted the landing net.

Then only after ten minutes or so after the smelt was out the float starts to bob and move. There was no messing around with it either, it was straight off on a run. Now Sam wanted to strike in to the fish so before I could say let the bite develop a little and feel the line tightening through is fingers he had already lifted in to it. Sadly as the fish pulled out of its mouth leaving only a half of the head left.

A jack I assume because the way it took off but a lost fish all the same....

Then all went weird, after catching bleak they all of a sudden switched off as soon as it got bright. We couldn't buy a bite after trying lots of ways to attract bait fish. After the lobworm wasn't taken either after nearly an hour and a half without a bite it was time for a move. We moved downstream where I've caught half decent fish before and again we couldn't buy a bite after catching a bleak on the second trot.

Whilst Sam was occupied trying his best to catch something I put the bleak under a bobber and headed to the start of the stretch where I've caught decent Perch before. The float was bobbing around for  5 minutes or so and then all of a sudden moved a couple of feet in a second or so. A real quick bite that when I lifted in to the float what had now submerged felt I felt the fish for a split second then it came off. The bleak had gone so assume another jack had taken it.

After feeding another swim with chopped lobworms for the last hour another lobworm went out again in a tasty looking swim that I'm sure a perch would be hiding. Sam was getting bored by now, despite feeding properly and trotting a float down time after time, the fish were nowhere to be seen. There was no fishing topping either. I moved up to a swim that is a good foot deeper than the ones in the are and out a smelt out to at least try and drop on the fish. After half an hour without any interest I reeled in the bait and it snatched a couple of foot from the bank by a jack.

It made me jump as well as it came out of nowhere to try and get an easy meal. It wasn't interested in taking it again and after Sam's boredom levels were being tested to new highs, I made the decision to cut the session short. From a promising start it went sour pretty quickly, three birds of prey kept us interested for a while patrolling their patch, but even the sight of those wasn't enough to keep us bankside. A tough session for sure.

So much for a hunch, I'll ignore it next time !!!!