Warwickshire Avon - Braggarts and Bestiocracy

A dawn of so much promise, the Warwickshire Avon looked in fine fettle when I got there as the sun was on the rise. Bait fish were topping everywhere and I'm sure there would be some predators about for the 4 hour session.

As per the norm here, I prefer to rove the various tasty looking deep swims with cover and try and find the fish. The last visit here I managed a Pike and had two aborted takes from Zander but that was at dusk when to be honest, I would prefer to fish.

Club rules put the kibosh on night fishing and yet it would be perfect here for the predators. Zander the biggest I've managed was knocking on for 9lb but to be fair I don't fish for them that often here, because it can be very moody indeed.

I started off with a bright green 12cm shad but 4 swims down I switched to a curly tail and had an aborted take literally right by by feet.

It didn't look a big fish and it wasn't a jack I don't think because usually they nail the lure good and proper it was a small Zed maybe 3 or 4 pounds.

The banker swims usually produced a jack pike at least but again nothing doing. Strange because the colour looked great too, maybe a couple of foot of visibility, I was wondering if Barbel might have been the better call.

But I've said at the start it can be very moody here and it can after a decent session you can be brought back down to earth with a rather large bang.

A couple more swims down I returned to where I started and had another aborted grab of the lure close in,  again another small fish, nothing big showed at all.

I couldn't believe the smelt remained untouched, maybe a return at dusk again is the way forward because the predators for sure were on the move, this morning was dead, even the bait fish disappeared after showing quite early on. 

With some more rain on the way and the colour good I might dust off the Barbel rod for a short session tomorrow evening, the outcome couldn't be any worse. The only saving grace some welcome peace and quiet and sometimes all I can ask for.