Warwickshire Avon - Pariahs and Perpilocutionists

Many anglers may shrug their shoulders on reading the statement that chub are not particularly difficult to catch. But I know I am right. Izaak Walton truly wrote that the chub is the "fearfullest of fish ", but he is also the most greedy, and one of the most stupid. That said, as a species, for me they are right up there in my favourite fish to catch.

The sight of a man in motion, an unnatural movement in a bait, a footfall on the bank, or a stir in the water, will send chub to the bottom at once, and stop their feeding, but if you do not frighten them, and can place the bait before them in a fairly natural manner as, for instance, a fly which seems to drop from the trees above, or a fragment of bread drifting down stream then chub will take the bait. 

When the water is low and bright the careful chub-fisher makes the best bags, for his bait is seen far and near by many fish, while he himself can, by using suitable tackle, keep so far off as not to be noticed.

I have known a 4lb rotund chub, whose age should have given him wisdom, to be caught in 1 ft. of water, when half a dozen split, shot, a good-sized float, tipped with red, and a part of the running line, were all visible to him. But he saw no harm in those things, and took the bait. 

Had he known a dreaded human being was about, I could no more have hoped to catch that chub than I can hope to make a careless person a good fisherman. So with the sky mostly blue and the water still clear, what the heck was I doing down the Warwickshire Avon.

Well to be fair I fancied a couple of hours roving after being sat in ones home office for seemingly far too long. I just HAD to get out no matter what. The problem was I had to be back for a certain time as the Wife was meeting some friends for dinner (yes all tier 1) and I had to look after the reprobates.

Still I know this intimate section of the Warwickshire Avon rather well so I was hoping I could at least winkle a Chub out. I tend to fish the same way here, try and spot where the fish are first, so that could be by allowing some bits of bread to float on the surface to see if any would come up and take the freebee. Or creep around low and try and spot any dark silhouettes under ones polarised sunglasses before offering a bait.

Float fishing big baits can work but the problem is it's not that wide here so when I'm stood upright especially in bright conditions I can easily be spotted. Hunkering down with a light link ledger setup is the way I tend to fish for them, and with a lobworm or breadflake as bait the trick is try and get the bait to move in-front of a waiting Chevin.

You see a seemingly fishless swim can also of a sudden be transformed in to Chub soup (don't bother) when chub hiding up in snags and undercut banks and the like can appear out of nowhere and reveal their whereabouts out of no fault of their own.They basically cannot help themselves, the greedy bugger and won't pass a meal up if they feel safe enough to wolf it down. 

Chub are sociable fish, and, for the most part make up a little family parties and reside together in hones, but stray, good-for-nothing fish, the outcasts of scaly society, are to be found scattered about the river, either on the shallows, among the weeds or along the banks, in water from 1ft to 15ft in depth. These pariah fall victim to the surface angler in particular.  

Anyway a short session this, better get fishing !!!!

I session I'd rather forgot you see, a carton of milk I had in my pocket burst quite early on and not only my clothes were wet but my phone too. It seemed fine throughout the session but then when I got home the phone switched off and I couldn't turn it back on again.

Now I need it for work for various security apps just to logon and I cannot restore the back up to my iPhone 5 as the phone that is now in the airing cupboard sat in rice is an iPhone 7. The session didn't go that well either, the fish were as cagey as anything and having the chub surfacing in two swims taking bread off the top, well I say take, they came up and nudged it around a bit bit didn't properly take it.

I eventually bumped one fish off but that spooked the best swim and once a gardener upstream was blowing the leaves from his rather large grounds straight in to the river, that put the kibosh on that !!!!

So I had to venture in to enemy territory in to the secret banker swim and I managed to catch one eventually. I had to put on a huge piece of bread though and leave the line slack as any resistance whatsoever, any small pull on the tip or if a fish felt the lead on the link ledger nothing materialised but this small change was the downfall of this hard fighting Warwickshire Avon chub.