Warwickshire Avon - Jungles and Jurisconsults

These awfully Posh Chilli and Roasted Garlic Pork crackling were a rather nice discovery I must admit, the chilli heat just right, the packet just the right size and the garlic, well, garlicky.

I tend to prefer the lighter pork scratching these days and these are in-between a heavy fat laden offering and a porky puff.  

With a nice bottle of Champion (ok three actually) and a footy match I actually managed to watch all the way through these were enjoyed to the full I must admit.

I don't put my feet up enough the weekend and maybe I should because I rather enjoyed it. But being stuck in front of a computer screen all week, often its needs must for ones own sanity. Anyway having stupidly dropped my bread disc bait tub down at the syndicate stretch earlier in the morning I roped in Ben to try and find where I'd left it. 

Now I'm renowned for leaving stuff bankside so nothing out of the ordinary really but we recovered it quickly so after a roam around we hit the road and were off out of there. Well for a walk in to Stratford anyway, my glasses needed adjusting. 

Cameras, bags, landing nets, banksticks and bite alarms, I've left all manner of things when I've been fishing and to be honest apart from the brass scales I lost down the river Stour, usually after retracing my steps the items have turned up. Often fishing in to dark doesn't help because its so easy to leave stuff when its dark despite the scanning and scanning again of the head torch. 

The weather was going to change for the worse the following day so I was in two minds whether to go fishing or not but when I woke up in the morning it would have been stupid not too, as it didn't look, too bad, considering the predicted apocalypse. 

So it was out the new all weather coat and I decided to roam around and fish some swims that are a little more inaccessible than the well trodden. There are fish here over the years that would break the 6lb barrier I'm sure of that but for me that have eluded me thus far and maybe I needed to think outside the box.

So for this short 2 hour session I'd decided to alternate between bread and cheesepaste and literally drop the bait in some likely fish holding areas. No feeding, but paste especially can roll around the swim nicely which can tempt even the most cautious of Chevin. 

Three swims down though only one swim produced bites and they were clearly from small fish the quick bite I wanted hadn't materialised. By now the wind was blowing a hooley and the rain quite heavy at times but I was dry warm and toasty and wondered why it's taken me so long to buy some half decent clothing to battling the elements. 

Two more swims down this wasn't going well and after I disturbed an otter in the margins that went back rather unceremoniously back in to the drink and appeared 40 yards downstream by popping its head out maybe the fish were having an off day and maybe for good reason.

Still a couple more swims to go and this I used to fish many moons ago before a tree blocked most of it. In winter though when the access is easer you can gain access to the other side of the swim and ok a little tricky to drop in a bait, but it can be done. 

Now what I didn't expect was at the first drop a proper lump of a chub took the cheesepaste as it fell through the clearing water. It took me by surprise because when I realised what the heck was going the fish had already made inroads to the mass of tree roots to the right.

With the rod bent double and with me holding on for dear life sadly the inevitable happened and after 4 or 5 seconds the hook pulled, damn !!! I rarely have hook pulls with chub but using paste cages and big baits I have noticed the odd fish when landed has had barely a hook hold, I'm sure that ultimately could well have contributed to the fish loss. Oh well, you live and learn, sadly no more bites in that swim and one more upstream, nothing either.