Warwickshire Avon - Lead-Swingers and Ligyrophobia

This short session down at the Warwickshire Avon to be honest couldn't come soon enough, you see my work hasn't let up since I started working on this ground up EV I've been working on for the last 2 years. 

The work started in the office as normal and now much of my work as a design engineer is conducted at home like it has for many from 'that' announcement from Boris for the start of the first lockdown. Ups and downs for sure like most people however I dread to think how many lead swingers are taking advantage and playing the system during these times. 

I'm not complaining as I've stayed in work and I'm very lucky but I don't particularly like conducting business by  Microsoft Teams where from the makeshift design office in the kids playroom my background is an entire wall mural of Ironman and his fellow Avengers. 

Luckily more recently I've been going in to the office or prototype build facility one day a week as I'd go insane otherwise, I get some people like working from home, especially those with a >1 hour commute but we as humans are social animals in the main. 

Now we all need a little “me time” now and then, but people vary greatly in how much time they prefer to spend in solitude. Some try to limit their alone time as much as possible, whereas others desire far more than they can fit into their busy schedules.

Although both solitude and loneliness involve being isolated from others, they’re not the same thing. We feel lonely when we don’t get the personal interactions we need, and it’s quite painful. In contrast, solitude is experienced as pleasurable a kind of alone time that we seek out rather than try to avoid.

Solitude gives us a chance to think, to enjoy a good book, or to get some respite from the stresses of an overactive social life or the pressures of work and the daily grind. 

A desire for solitude can also be the hallmark of a mature, intelligent person, since many intellectual pursuits tend to be solitary in nature and fishing for us is a by-product luckily. 

However, a general preference for solitude may come at a price, in that it puts us in danger of feeling lonely after we’ve accomplished our solitary goals. 

Some people prefer solitude because they’ve had unpleasant social experiences in the past. In response, they throw themselves into their work or hobbies, which they find more enjoyable than spending time with people they find tedious or mean-spirited. But at the end of the day, there’s still an unmet need for meaningful connections with others.

A weeks family holiday where 25k daily steps was the norm, then a trip to Alton Towers where 15k was ticked off before even the first ride on the Wicker Man hardly a holiday, well in the true sense of the term. Then a three night Stag Do this weekend for a clubbing event where will my solitude be sought ?

Well luckily just down the road where I'd only fish for a couple of hours but those couple of hours will be enough to reset the piece and quiet neurons. To be fair the rather lacklustre lure sessions at Instow weren't too bad, well until the four legged noisy stick chasers turned up to spoil the sounds of the waves that is.

The Avon needs rain it really does because when it is a gin clear as this it never fishes well in my experience at all. However once the light goes things start to improve no end and this exactly what happened for this session.

Not even a knock for an hour but then as soon as the light started to go the first sigh of fish in the swim. What I didn't expect though was that a Gudgeon would be the first fish to be interested in the hot fish boilie. 

I thought the 'tap tap tap' might have been from an eel at first but no, it was a Gonk that clearly had eyes bigger than its belly. I'd added a PVA bag of hemp and small pellets so maybe after a starter it wanted its main course.

Soon after a couple of decent chub pulls a Barbel bite ensued but this was no Barbel it was a near 4lb Chub that had hooked itself despite the long hair and gave a 4ft twitch a Barbel angler wants to see but not with a chub on the end.  Still a decent fight to be fair and not unexpected here where Barbel numbers seem to be down. 

Conditions are a massive factor though, a soon as there is colour on the Warwickshire Avon fortunes can change significantly, experience tells me that.

A splasher chub came just before the curfew time and that ended the session but for me fish are secondary for much of what I get out of fishing these days. Solitude you cannot beat it.