Warwickshire Avon - Brass Monkeys and Blennophobia

Many cultures around the world have mythical stories of strange creatures inhabiting their lands. 

There's the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, Big Foot in America, Little Green Men in more desert like parts of America, the Bunyip in Australia, Elfs in Ireland, moose in New Zealand (that's actually a real thing), the Beast of La Plagne (need to know basis only) and so many more. 

The only thing that one can be sure of is that all these are real If one is planning to go hunting for Big Foot, it seems that the Pacific Northwest is the best place to start. 

Anyway before I get involved with some cryptozoology in America, I'll ease myself in to the challenge and try and track down one of the elusive Warwickshire Avon 6lb Chub. I've seen them with my own eyes and know a few that have caught them, but for me they haven't succumbed to ones tactics just yet. 

A newly made batch of cheesepaste is like a fine wine, it simply cannot be rushed, chill out, relax but rest assured I'm sure it will get an outing again before the winter is out, but for now, just leave it be. For coloured water or fishing in the dark for chub, cheesepaste is hard to beat for chub fishing I find. 

Confidence in bait is the key with any fishing and despite trying all manner of baits for chub, the mouldy stinky offering will always been in ones loggerhead armoury. 

The batch I made up yesterday had four different blue cheeses with some grated spicy cheddar, garlic salt, crushed szechuan peppercorns and binded with grated shortcrust pastry.

Now bread, we are talking big hunks of the stuff, is also one of those baits I've utter confidence in. When the water has dropped significantly and when the clarity is starting to clear a visual bait such as bread is hard to beat especially when in this cold water when the chub are not moving much.

Drop a bait on their heads, from a slumber their eyes raise and the burlesque show they are all of a sudden subjected to can often promote an instant reaction. 

For this session I'd chuck a few flyers their way in the form of some mashed bread and then shortly after provide them the main event a folded bread disk fished via a large float.

I'd struggled a little on this stretch of late and fancied something different than fishing static. 

It's tactics I've employed in the past and with some nice trotting swims such as this being more mobile and covering more water has its advantages. 

To be honest I'd be quite happy with one fish being how cold it is at the minute. 

Three swims down without a touch I decided to head down to the tail end of the stretch where there is a nice long run where there is usually some chub hanging around.

It's a swim I fish in the summer mainly as it's a nice place to catch them off the top.

I've had some decent fish in the past as well, in to the 5's anyway which ain't bad for the Warwickshire Avon.

I wetted the bread a little more to produce more of a cloud and fed the swim every few minutes with a small dollop to drift down the water column. The first fish came after twenty minutes which was the smallest of  the lot because well, I ended up having the fish queuing up until I ran out of bread. 

They were even taking it off the top at one point. To cut a long story short I caught probably 30lb of chub and 11 or 12 fish. Most were over 3lb with the biggest going 4lb ish a really enjoyable session on the float. Even after returning a full small landing net that didn't put them off either.

Shame I got through the bread so quick as I'd caught more no doubt. There were even taking it off the top at the very end of the swim when I'd drifted the odd bit down. This was with 4 odd degree water temperatures but just goes to show find a shoal and get them competing they are well up for a feed.