Warwickshire Avon - Cenobites and Ceraunomancy

These opportunities don't come up very often, you see over a mile of Warwickshire Avon I can drive right next to the river and fish in to dusk and beyond is very rare indeed. I can park right behind my peg as well which for fishing in the dark is ideal especially when most sessions will be short and for barbel. 7 miles door to door, what's not to like. 

Last season here some PB breaking barbel were banked from the other members of this small syndicate and I wanted in on it. This area like much of the Warwickshire Avon holds some right old lumps but it was the fact that the old smaller barbel had been showing up got me interested, as well as the potential to beat my 12lb and 14 ounces. 

Now Sam who had just received his first phone as he is off to secondary school in September was up for a reccy too and as we drove up the stretch he got familiar with some the Apps his Mum had installed with him.

The access is ideal the Jimny making light work of the terrain and apart from the odd large depression not an issue at all, and as we stopped ever so often to check the swims out the further we drove up the stretch the better it seemed to get. 

The top of the stretch has it all to hold a decent barbel as there was some much deeper areas but mixed with gravel and streamer weed. 

I didn't spot any barbel though but I suspect if I baited a few areas eventually some fish would turn up. The Avon always fishes better with water on because it is crystal clear now being summer and low and can often look like it devoid of life. In-fact the smaller shoals of roach and bleak were suspicious in their absence. 

Extra water seems to switch the fish on but obviously in these conditions dusk and beyond is when the larger fish are likely to start to mooch about for food.

So I'll be back in the week I think and see if I could winkle anything out. Locating barbel is the hardest part in these quarters but find where they are holding up, I've found them not exactly hard to catch. The problem is blanks are inevitable because even if you stumble upon some, they have plenty of river to explore before the return to familiar areas where they can slip up. 

Chub on the other hand are in good numbers on the Avon and it didn't take long to find some fish. To be fair it took 3 or 4 swims to find any fish drifting the bread down on the surface.

But the tell-tale swirls in one swim they were in situ. Not a huge number of fish but the odd one, and after the baited piece of bread was picked up first drift down, Sam was up for having a go first off and wanted the rod off me without me getting a look in. 

A 3lber gave him a right run around after it tried to get in to some far side reed but the drag was set perfectly and some bullying from Sam the fish was eventually in the net.

I managed a 4lber in the next couple of casts and that was that, despite the first fish being retained the other fish in the swim disappeared completely. So I'll be back one evening and will fish in to dusk and then in to dark to try and temp a barbel. I think I will like this stretch and looking forward to seeing what I can catch.