Warwickshire Avon - Tetbury Portions and Tradesman's Entrances

With a chippy mate 'bananas for fingers' Wardy booked up fitting kitchens for the seeable future the Wife was given a heads up on a local landscaping firm. A 5 star rated tradesman according to their self regulated Facebook page, lots of praise from customers, pictures of completed projects, i'll have a bit of that.

So an answerphone message left and a couple of pictures emailed of ones fence to be replaced. To be fair a quote back received pretty quick to be fair, a price I was happy with all I needed was to pencil in a date, look, please take my money !!!.

"Don't worry, I acknowledge your email and will get back to you as soon as I can, I can also remove the old fencing for £50"

2 and a half weeks pass without an email, a phone call, radio silence, all I need is a date, or if you're busy any idea when you can do it...

Another phone call straight to answerphone, a 'nudge' email to say we are still interested, again nothing another 10 days later.

Unreasonable for me to want better service ?

I think not, I'd quickly be out of work if I operated like that, but it seems the norm in many trades these days, how hard is it to keep a potential customer happy, very difficult it seems. Still money for old rope, hardly a difficult job, even though I'm busy with my own work I might as well do it myself.

Now talking about keeping a customer happy, roving has always been my favourite approach when targeting certain species, Chub for instance I cannot think anything better than a cold and crisp underfoot winters day walking the banks, travelling light and fishing a few swims.

Since the lockdown drawbridge was lifted though I've not done enough if it, not sure why, it's just been the way the trips have panned out.

This short evening session was all change though with simple roving tactics down one of favourite sections of the Warwickshire Avon.  Spam would be mounted directly on the hook and I'd also alternate with some large pieces of breadflake too.

There are good Chub here and the odd Barbel that tuck themselves away in the various cover so almost bumping and trundling large baits through the water can often bring them out from their lair and a quick bite can often happen.

No hooklink for this set-up but a couple of SSG shot pinched directly on the line and also some plasticine could be added if I needed more weight. Here sees the levels rise more than any other other area of the Warwickshire Avon I fish so it a necessity to be able to alter the weight as the swims vary so much.

Only a couple or three hours but enough time to try and winkle out a fish.

The colour is starting to drop out of the Avon and it's near as damn it back to being clear again, still the levels were up and it looked in good nick. A chublet came pretty quick on bread so I thought I would be in for a decent session but it was tougher than I thought.

After 4 swims without anymore knocks I went to a swim where usually if there are chub there they take it off the top. Sure enough within seconds of the bread being out and difting down on the surface a few fish came up to inspect the bread. They need to be confident here so after a good fifteen minutes of feeding I removed the shot pinched on the line and a piece of crust was impaled on the hook.

Sure enough they were confident now and without a care in the world a chub took the whole lot down just like that. A pretty decent fight but the fish wasn't huge, maybe getting on for 4lb but a welcome fish all the same. 2 more chub were banked on bread in a couple of swims downstream, but meat didn't get a look-in.

As dusk approached though and a vivid sunset appeared I went back to a swim I baited with some chunks of meat and fished the last half an hour with a piece nailed to the bottom. I bumped a fish off which was a chub I think but with a busy easy ahead it was time to get moving.