Warwickshire Avon - Rantiploe's and Rackaback's

Everyone needs a bait fridge of their own, you see Scott Gill a fellow WBAS member has had to make a compromise on, something as an angler shouldn't be compromised and sadly has had to resort to freezing, yes you heard right, freezing his cheesepaste used for winter Chub.

The family fridge out of bounds to things fishy related. Now my batch of cheesepaste on the other hand I've been adding to over the years and some of it must be 4 or 5 years old. It's a good batch I tell thee, Warwickshire Avon chub of 5lb and over have now succumbed to this offering.

The pungency of the mouldy paste so strong, it's like hitting a massive wall of festering stilton, the air so thick it could be cut with a knife.

There are also other benefits as well, the Wife won't go near it, so that big bag of pork scratching you'd rather not share, yeap, put it in the bait fridge.

That chocolate bar that doesn't fit in with the healthy eating you're both partaking in, yeap, a 4 pack of Wispa Gold tucked behind the maggots.

Even a Christmas present you want to hide from the beloved, time to make some space in the bait fridge.

Anyway enough of the that, back to the fishing.

This piece of water has been good to me in the past, some clonking Chub to over 5lb, Barbel to nearly 12lb and some clonking Gudgeon.

What has eluded me thus far though is Albuttbarbelbutt, now Albuttbarbelbutt aptly named by Sam the tangleator, is bar far the biggest Barbel I've seen frequenting these parts, a fish so huge if it was diagnosed with flesh eating bacteria the doctor would give it 86 years to live.

Now I don't fish for Barbel that often but having somehow caught quite a few doubles, the biggest 12lb 14oz's, I can tell you that this fish was bigger, much bigger in-fact. That's why despite not fishing here that often now, it's always stayed on ones radar, a fish this bigger needs some attention it really does.

The problem is blanks can become tiresome, and having fished it quite a few times now the 'Big'un' has eluded me thus far.

Heck Jeremy Wade may well be interested !!!!

Is it still here ?

Has the resident Otter given it, it's marching orders ?

Could my eyes have been deceiving me ?

I've caught some nice Barbel here to be fair. in-fact the fish I registered for this years Bloggers Challenge was caught in these special waters, a lovely torpedo shaped fish of 10lb and 11 ounces.

The next trip here, another fish of around 9lb. The stamp of fish does seem to be a little higher here than other areas I fish but as I said before, more often that not you'd blank.

One swim in particular has been kind to me and for this short after work session this is the only swim I'd fish. With the river up and carrying a colour more suited for a dunking by Augustus Gloop I'd fish a lump of spam on one rod and a Hot Fish & GLM boilie on the other. Both rods fitted with a large cage feeder filled with pungent chunky fish groundbait and a few small pellets to try and get a fish grubbing around in these turbulent waters.

It's a nice swim this, even when the river is carry a lot of extra water just off the crease of the river there is a relatively large swim that not only has decent depth, but there is an undercut bank that often the fish lay up.

You don't even need a large lead to hold bottom, the swim is static more or less so the rod tops stay motionless with only the wind to contend with.

As I said before, this is swim where often you blank, but if you do get a bite from a Barbel it's a biggy. The theory here is that if there is a fish holding up eventually it will venture out to mop up the layer of goodies it can smell before tucking himself back up for the evening.

The fish has to be there though, and 2 hours in without even a chub pull I scaled down a little a switched one the rods to maggots. There are clonking Gudgeon here so one of those would have been nice to save a blank, but after another hour without even a tap I decided I was wasting my time.

A blank, yes, another blank !!! there is always the next time.