Small Brook Fishing Pt.18 - Floccinaucinihilipilification and Floricide

Oddly despite walking parallel to this little brook for many a time now I've never wet a line here, well why would I when there is bigger fish to catch. 

The other day though prior to a biteless Barbel session I noticed in one of the pools there were some dace and chublets sunning themselves in the upper layers of this diminutive waterway. It is a snaggy as hell so so any fishing would need to be done with the bait off the bottom. 

The estate owners a couple of years ago had 'landscaped' this short section because it had become rather overgrown, you see when the main Warwickshire Avon was well up, the water backed here and basically flooded the adjacent farmland well before it should have done really. 

To be honest clearing it out was probably long overdue it also meant the rickety old bridge that I'm sure had caught anglers out in the past would also need to be removed.  

Before the works were carried you'd be hard pushed to distinguish what was stream and what was scrub let alone see where the watercourse actually was. 

Once the works was carried out it frankly looked ridiculous but its surprising just how quickly things recovered and the landscape looks largely unaffected, well apart from the felled trees still piled high for all to see.  

Now Sam had really taken to his whip of late because well he loves getting bites from small fish.

Float fishing is probably his favourite method out all of the techniques I've subjected him to over the years. 

We didn't have long as we had some good friends over for Sunday dinner however just enough to winkle out a few fish. An hour or two though and more than enough time to get a few bites to keep a youngster entertained especially when the quarry was largely unknown. The waterways varies so much over a relatively short distance from swims with barely a trickle to swims where you cannot see the bottom. 

The Warwickshire Avon has been clear for weeks and weeks but there is always colour in these forgotten waterways so the fishing can be more productive than you think. 

It was evident that minnows were in good numbers because the float wouldn't settle in some swims because the little blighters were after the maggots. The first swim we tried was more out of necessity than anything because the rain was quite heavy to begin with. 

A few chublets and dace were among the countless minnows and it was surprising just how many fish were packed in to some of the swims. The maggot hardly settled before it was snaffled by something. 

So luckily the bites were forthcoming throughout the short session where we managed to fish 4 swims. In one of the swims 5 chublets were caught before the group wondered what the heck was going on, all retained in the landing net before being returned. 

I was hoping for more species such as bullheads and gudgeon but chub were the predominate species.  In the last swim a few roach turned up the tell-tale superfast bites indicated there presence. We both love this sort of fishing and I bet no other anglers have even bothered to fish it. 

Why would they ? seems a forgotten pursuit these days. Still 6 years in to his fishing thankfully Sam hasn't yet asked me to take him to a commercial. He loves his Whip fishing so I might give Santa a nudge and get him to add a better one to his Christmas list. To be fair the freebie one from Angling Direct has been great up till now but it could do with being another foot or two longer.