Warwickshire Avon - Sanctanimity and Sabotagery

With the closed season canal campaign done and dusted one thing I will not miss now the rivers are open is the often busy and muddy towpaths, the wayward boats, the twenty questions from the gongoozler oh, and the dog mess that taints these man made hell holes, sorry largely featureless waterways.

Don't get me wrong I've enjoyed fishing them in the main as it offers something different. These relatively natural venues can show up surprises and despite the attention of Ottermus Prime and his mates over recent years there are still some good fish to be caught.

As solitude seeker however these waterways don't offer what I need to consume in ever increasing quantities and fishing the canals is a means to an end. It is the peace and quiet away from it all I need to keep my wellbeing in check. This small syndicate section of the Warwickshire Avon can offer just that. 

The money payers kept small so that invariably you're the only one fishing the venue which means especially when we can fish in to dark here the sanctimonious fingers pointers are well away from spitting distance.

Often a decent fish can be a bonus and looking back at my blog I've only caught one Barbel from here a decent double to be fair, but it was the Chub that would have gotten most of  attention to be fair as I'm sure there is a 6 lber here with my name on it.

 

For this session an hour before dusk I'd bait drop in some hemp and pellets close in and then get a glugged boilie bait out over the top with a pva bag of freebies so see what I could winkle out. 

Before that though I'd fish some large pieces of bread flake in the swim to see what I could pick up. You see this area hasn't been fished for a good number of years till the syndicate took it on again and we all know fish hate pressure so here the quarry are very much an unknown quantity.  

I've only caught a handful of Warwickshire Avon carp and I caught one here in those introductory sessions as well as a decent bream just fishing large pieces of bread. 

Bread can often pick up bonus fish and by fishing a light set-up the bread can almost drag along the bottom with the flow and its a good way of exploring a new water for a bonus fish when apart from bites from small fish the larger fish are often not willing to participate until the light goes. 

A rather pleasant evening greeted me and the first chuck of the bread flake I was getting indications as soon as it hit the bottom, seem decent pulls too but despite  striking at some of the more violent plunks no fish materialised. There are some decent dace here and I expect it was those determined to remove all the bait off the hook.

After I got the hemp out I left the swim for half an hour or so and tried a raft downstream to see if a chub was home but sadly it wasn't, again some knocks and pulls on the tip but nothing that developed in to a proper bite.

I gave myself an hour in to dark and then I'd be on my way, I had a few initial pulls when the bait went down initially but it took a good half an hour before the first proper pull, chub had finally turned up.

I've said before I don't mind catching chub on Barbel gear if they are determined to get themselves hooked but I prefer to catch them by design on barbel gear. The mistake I had made for this session was I usually use air dried boilies and for half an hour I was fishing without a bait on the hair as the glugged boilie was removed on one of the pulls.😭

I rebaited and within 5 minutes half an hour after dusk I managed a small chub around 2lb, then 10 minutes before packing up time another decent bite and this time a better chub after wrapping the bait in paste, but a chub that dropped off a few seconds in to the fight.

Like much of the Avon bites from Barbel are at a premium these days so it's a matter of plugging away and these short sessions are ideal especially as its so handy.

Barbel are not hard to catch but they need to be in-front of you that's half the problem. Here there is potential of a big'un, I've no doubt about that and I'm looking forward to giving it another go when conditions are more favourable, I put some more bait down before I left as I'm sure that will hopefully keep fish in the area.