The River Arrow - Pingdemics and Pinacotheca

With the mercury predicted to rise above that found in Ibiza this shallow stretch of the River Arrow is great as the kids can take a swim and a paddle, and it just so happens it is a pork scratching throwaway from a butcher we've been using for years.

To kill two birds with one stone and all that....

The quality of the pork shoulder and shin of beef is unquestionable as is the fact that chub reside here in the shallowest of waters. Not only the butchers too, but the local shops also has one of the best stocked off licences in the area.

Small rivers over time as they turn and twist over their route can change quite dramatically especially when the river is in spate and that means despite being knee deep to a grasshopper like it was today there are deeper areas that will still hold fish.

The kids and I don't particularly like the weather when its like this, 30 degrees is fine when I've access to a swimming pool or have an air-conditioned villa to kip in but with an insulated house in the UK, just to get to sleep is all a bit of a nightmare. 

So you have to do whatever you need to do to keep cool and your body temperature manageable.  

Now I'm an ale man really but this off-licence stocks Hacker-Pschorr Münchner Gold which is one of the most historic German Helles Lagers in the world. 

Brewed beer for the first ever Oktoberfest in Munich and inaccordance with the German purity law. This beer is a 5.5% golden lager with a lovely bread aroma with a lemon-like edge. It has a lovely smooth feel and crisp hopped finish. 

One of Germany’s best lagers and when drank proper cold is a thing to be savoured not knocked back in these ridiculously hot and humid conditions, and boy was it hot. 

We'd never wet a line here to be honest because we usually its coincided with the closed season but that was going to change for this post lunch family outing. We would usually bring some slices of bread here though and in one particular snaggy swim the chub were queuing up to intercept the floating bread.

Apart from the chub there are small roach, dace and millions of minnows knocking about happily going about their business without knowing that the following day will be the half arsed freedom day. Well it certainly won't be that for those hundreds of thousands that have been pinged by the NHS track and trace app and have been told to self-isolate. 

Now I used to fish the Arrow not far from here 6 or 7 years ago and it was a lovely little river that oddly I didn't quite gel with it. I caught a few barbel and some nice chub to be fair, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it the draw of the river wasn't quite what I expected it might have been given that I love fishing diminutive rivers.  

I have thought about giving it another go but I know from others that have been fishing it that it isn't fishing well at all. Some of the match results show that as well, still if you know differently please let me know because maybe it could offer what I've been seeking locally, a small river that has Barbel to catch. 

As much as I love fishing the Warwickshire Avon for them smaller waterways are more my bag. Anyway we'd a 7ft rod rigged up with a large hook and bread and that was it. Well apart from forceps and a phone holder on a bankstick. 

The Wife's eyes glaze over with anything fishing but she was off galavanting at the F1 at Silverstone with some friends as she was given a grandstand ticket for both of days as one of them is high up at McLaren. Daddy day care basically so we'd be left to our own devices.

How much trouble could we get in to ?

Well not that much sadly because the river is so low those fish holding spots that did have fish in them last time we came no longer had fish in them. Painfully clear too but after a good paddle in the lovely cold water eventually after feeding some bread at the tail end of the last swim eventually a chub showed itself. Sam grabbed the rod off me and I put on a huge piece of squeezed on flake and after the first trundle down he'd bumped a fish off straight away.

I thought that was his only chance but no after another few casts a chub had hovered up the bread and a fish was on. This little 7ft rod is great with 8lb line and a tight drag it is proper hit and hold fishing and Sam played the fish really well before I netted it and for its size it fought well above its weight. His brother Ben thought it was a Zander but Sam quite rightly corrected him. 

With the sun beating down and other fish being very elusive we'd decided to call it a day and headed back home for a well deserved ice-cream and for me anyway, an ice cold beer.