Warwickshire Avon - Boomers and Blowsabella's

The spam keeps on keeping, Google also randomly deletes legitimate comments oddly, apologise if you were one of those.

Anyway I  must have done something in a previous life, you see all three houses visited the weekend for social or other reasons all much bigger than ours, and ours isn't exactly a shoe-box, it's got 4 bedrooms and is detached, these were next level up and then some.

The weather held out for the BBQ luckily the kids enjoying friends newly installed 12 foot above ground pool despite the weather being very much hit and miss. Kids don't care do they, a dip of the toe first and then straight in, no messing.

The biggest we are actually looking after for the whole week whilst the owners are on holiday. It's nice for them to trust us with the house I suppose and helps the kids really enjoying the watering the plants, feeding the animals and making use of the gardens.

Not full on house sitting but not far off. It has a large outdoor heated pool complete with pool house / guest accommodation, a huge greenhouse probably bigger than the whole of our downstairs, a home cinema and 7 acres of land that goes with it.

Ok he earns a bucket-load in the worlds most expensive competitive motor-sport so he needs a house to match his salary I suppose, and boy what a house, it's only a few minute drive away, or 15 minute walk over the fields so we've been making the most of it.

A house where to be honest you wouldn't really need to leave once the gate has shut behind you, well unless you're in a villa in Italy with an infinity pool over-looking Lake Gada.

How the other half live !!!!

Still I'm not complaining, as many free range eggs as we can find and whatever we want from the greenhouse, little cherry tomatoes being the main forage because Ben especially can happily eat them by the bucket load.

Plum, apple and pear trees in the orchard, various vegetables in the vegetable patch, to be honest it wouldn't take much to become full self sufficient.

I can certainly see the appeal of a small holding as such, a change of lifestyle that not only would put some proper home grown food on your table but also a byproduct would naturally be exercise because of all the work it would entail to keep on top of it all.

Now it was good we were on hand because the flash floods we had locally took one of their outside drains by surprise, so much so it caused some minor flooding in the basement but not only that, it also tripped the power and also caused the internet, CCTV and alarm to malfunction.

Some of the local roads were like rivers the Alne up in to nearly flood and back again in a few hours. Still at least the Warwickshire Avon was up nicely but more of that later. Some drivers regretting trying to wade through some of flooded roads after having to abandon their cars.

Henley-in-Arden just down the road was on the news because it has received 60mm of rain in as many minutes. That's not far off a month of rain so no wonder there were issues. Monday wasn't much better to be fair some proper heavy showers for a good couple of hours.

Luckily a couple of huge rugs had soaked up much of the excess water but still one of them two people to lift because of the huge sponge it had become, the largest even Eddie Hall would be calling for back-up.

Imagine the stench if that was to sit there undisturbed for a week. A phone call to the owners to get them off their sun loungers and away from their G&T's it was quickly sorted and all was right again.

It took a couple of hours to sort though with the mop bucket having to be emptied a few times the basement is also the laundry room, plant room, wine cellar and games room so probably 4 basket loads of sodden washing and also beanbags had to be re-located outside to the pool house.

Not exactly a nice welcome after holiday but at least the worst of if was sorted.

So with the Avon with some water on but on the fall it was time to try for a Barbel again. I'd go for convenience for this session evening though, from the car a short hop skip and a jump to get bankside so if thunderstorm did arrive it wouldn't be too much hassle to pack the small amount of gear away.

As I was fishing in to dark, I planned to do an hour up to dusk and an hour after, big pungent baits were the order of the day rather than bait dropping a load of pellets and hemp and fishing over the top of the buffet.

No chair just a landing net and unhooking mat, rods and rod rest. The unhooking mat could be used as a canopy if there was a spattering of rain, a full on downpour I'd be off sharpish, the weather predictors have got it more wrong than right of late, I was talking no chances.

I had to park in the ditch of doom because there were already to syndicate members who were here parked in the other spaces. You cannot blame them to be fair, the river was nicely up had a decent flow and even a tinge of colour.

For a Barbel though on the Warwickshire Avon is very much a waiting game and largely for one bite. My sessions are 2-5 hours max, the former the most frequent, bait goes in an hour before dusk, I'm packing up and hour after.

Dave and the Prof has struggled to catch anything half decent, nothing on big baits but the Prof had managed some bits on the float. After the initial pleasantries and sadly missing the sausage sarnies I got to my swim for the short session.

The same swim I caught a decent double from a couple of months ago ( I think ). Meat on one rod a paste wrapped boilie on the other. Not long after being there Dave had his first proper bite and I could see him landing a fish. A 5+ Warwickshire Avon chub on meat he announced on the syndicate WhatsApp group, I'd like one of them.

The Prof was out with the big feeders ala River Trent and was putting a bed of bait down to try and attract a mouching Barbel by ringing the dinner bell. Dusk came and went and I had a quite a powerful pull which was enough to pull the relatively soft textured meat away from the Enterprise meat stop.

But that's when the action stopped, the odd pull and pluck but no proper bites materialised the hour and a half after dusk. The Prof had landed a near 6lb bream which was an encouraging sign but again, not what he was after.

The resident otter was 10 foot from me at one point, I've seen bigger, oddly down the smallest river I fish the Alne, but it was quite active once the light went.

Still I left with my tail between my legs being the only one to blank. As I left Dave was packing up too and after the decent Chub he had, he had sadly bumped a couple of fish off on meat, chub or maybe eels one would assume. Still nice to be out because another forgettable session, they have been mounting up of late.