Warwickshire Avon - Hot Fish and Honorificabilitudinity

With the early afternoon spent taking the Christmas decorations down and dry January in full swing the football wasn't really doing it for me, so I grabbed some tackle together and headed down to the Warwickshire Avon for a last minute Barbus.

The river was on the up again which wasn't ideal and the little brook on-route was showing the effects of the recent rain. Where had the time gone ? the extra long break has come round far too fast, at least I've been out a few times 💪

Barbel don't mind a river in flood, in-fact I often only target them in these conditions especially when the weather is mild like it is at the moment. A change is on the way though as the temperature is going to drop to that more suited to the winter season. 

If I didn't get out for this session I'd miss an opportunity to try and winkle one out. I'm in two-minds whether to renew this book and some big decisions need to be made for the new season. It is very convenient being only 10 minutes away by car but the barbel numbers have been on the decline and to be honest thats one of the reasons why I fished this stretch.

I'm not one to sit behind motionless rods and that's what has been happening more often than not over the last couple of years. I used to be able to rock up straight after work an hour before dusk and 8 times out of 10 as soon as the light went, more often than not a barbel would provide that 3 foot twitch.

When it was up and coloured multiple fish captures were a possibility when I first became a member and this stretch is home to my 12lb 14oz PB and quite a few doubles. But it's not just me that if finding it difficult of late, maybe members I bump in to are saying the same thing. I have noticed outside of the matches that the banks of have been quiet, very quiet and there is a good reason for that.

For this 2 hour session I roved around the middle of the stretch where one of the bailiffs had said the other fish had popped up recently and as expected had it all to myself. 

2 swims down without even a nibble I alternated between Dynamite Hot Fish boilies, matching paste and also lobworm. Each cast also had a PVA bag of stinky pellets to try and get any fish in the area out to come up to the bait. The river despite rising looked in decent fettle and was a tropical 10.7 degrees. It had dropped quite a bit of the last couple of days and the fish should have been used to it now.

The brook in the first picture enters the river around here and it had really coloured up the water so the last peg I fish in to dusk was upstream of this. There was an overhanging tree to the left and out in-front, decent depth and a gravel bottom and a lovely smooth uninterrupted flow, it screamed a Barbel, it really did.

I've caught some nice fish in this area in the past and some big chub too but dusk came and went without even a chub pull, so to be honest the curfew this stretch has couldn't round quick enough, another Barbel blank to add the many I've had here now.