Warwickshire Avon - Death Stars and Dasypoedes

Another ridiculously busy week where I'd not really had the enthusiasm to wet a line. To honest I don't mind fishing in the dark but I prefer to arrive post dusk and fish in to dark, not turn up when it is already pitch black. The weather as well hasn't helped where its been rather cold, windy and wet as well. So feet up, and some tv to plunder instead of chasing fish. 

Anyway for those Stout lovers out there, this Northern Monk offering ain't a bad drop at all especially when I hate overly sweet beers that you tend to get with stronger beers. A pretty penny at Tesco but luckily its a sipper rather than a glugger, but well recommended if you can get your hands on some, especially those with a decadent palate. 

Now The first known use of the word stout for beer, in a document dated 1677 found in the Egerton Manuscripts, referred to its strength. 

The name porter was first used in 1721 to describe a dark brown beer. Because of the huge popularity of porters, brewers made them in a variety of strengths. 

The stronger beers, typically 7% or 8% alcohol by volume (ABV), were called "stout porters", so the history and development of stout and porter are intertwined, and the term stout has become firmly associated with dark beer, rather than just strong beer.

Now talking of dark the Zander still has a rap especially from the electro wand wavers from the canal and river trust contractors who still see fit to plunder the waterways for them despite being considered established and naturalised in many of the turbid waters they swim in. 

Natural England have responsibility for the Wildlife and Countryside Act and state that it is illegal to release species to which the Act applies without a licence, including Zander, whether this is the first or subsequent releases. 

Now the EA could choose to make a report to the Police for action, but few people seriously believe the CPS would think it was in the public interest to prosecute. The reality is that catch and release fishing for Zander is a long-established angling practice in areas of the UK where they are present and will continue to remain an important part of our sport.

 

Anyway for this session with the river up I fancied trying an area of the Warwickshire Avon that has a nice big slack where I've caught Zander from before. 

I didn't have much time, but enough to fish this one swim to see if there were any Zed's up for a feed.

I'd fish a roach in the margins but then would also have a lobworm rod out as well to see if any Chevin fancied a feed as well. I do like a bit of double dipping especially when both of the target species are my favourites. This area has always been on my radar having lost a decent fish here at dusk that somehow managed to snag me up. Despite knowing the river rather quite well and still to the life of me I still don't know how it managed to do it. 

The river was well up as expected but it looked a nice colour and the slack looked in perfect fettle for a bite. An hour in only a couple of small taps on the lobworm and nothing to disturb the pike float so I went for a rove to one of the downstream pegs with the Chub rod.

Again no bites after 20 minutes, well only from small fish as I did get the odd small tap and pluck so I returned to the first swim to stick it out in to dusk.

As dusk was approaching something jumped out of the water right in-front of me and I'm not 100% sure what it was. It was a decent size fish too, it looked pikey but then I cannot remember a pike ever doing that before.

Dusk came and went and half an hour in to proper dark the temperature plummeted and as there was nothing doing at all I decided to call it a day. I was surprised that the chub were not up for a feed but then this is a roving stretch you need to find the fish. The Zander well suspicious in their absence but then with the water being cold not entirely unexpected.