Warwickshire Avon - Carrot Man and Carcinology

With many of the local rivers still outs of sorts it's been difficult to decide where and how I could get that much needed fishing fix.  The huge amount of rain we had recently that came with the storms combined with the water table that was already full to the brim, the bigger Midlands rivers really have taken the brunt, and the smaller spate rivers and brooks up and down with the fluctuating financial markets. 

Now it is the fourth time in three years the Severn has flooded, leaving riverside communities from Shrewsbury down to Bewdley counting the cost once again. 

At Ironbridge (you can see the world famous bridge in the background) the water had come within around 10cm of the top of the temporary barriers.

Thankfully as I type this the worst is over and the levels are beginning to fall. Those on the opposite side of the river once again are pumping out their living rooms, putting their valuable out of harms ways and assessing the flood damage. Many of those houses are basically worthless and if it were not for the holiday let business keeping them going, they river would have got its way.

 

Still there are many residents putting up with flooding year on year, they deal with it when it happens, they'd been there done that, it's part of the territory. 

Some reports from the ground (Nic '2 dace' Bradley ) the Alne wasn't fishing at all well to such an extent a question Nic asked was there actually any fish in it !!!

The Stour was also hit and miss because of the fish having to deal with and also try to manage the different conditions from one day to the next.

Anyway for this trip with Sam's Carrot Man joining me for the ride, I was back to where I had a dropped run on the last session. 

The fish was taking line from the bait runner however when I lifted the rod and felt the line, it had obviously felt the resistance and made hay before it felt the extremely sharp point of the Sakuma 440.

The running set-up was ditched for another float rod where the grippa stop was moved up the line, and moved up again. It's deep up here, very deep and having caught quite a few Zander here over the years I've fished it I was hoping there was one on the munch.

Only a short leapfrogging session admittedly but having been stuck in-front of the CAD screen all week, any bank time would be most welcome.  

5 swims down fishing a small whole fish on one rod a chunk of roach on the other for around 20 minutes in each swim I had nothing to show for it. The river was brown as expected and despite it being cold I thought I'd manage to winkle at least one fish out. 

The swims you see looked perfect, cover, slacks and away from the turbulence some nice sheltered swims to lay in wait. Zander don't mind flow at all though so I did mix it up a bit where a couple of the swims had some decent flow, but they were clearly not up for a feed.

I fish a little longer than I thought it would and even stayed in to dusk but I had ones tail firmly between my legs when I headed home. It's amazing what fishing does for you mind though, the wellbeing certainly boosted up a notch or two.