Warwickshire Avon - Dragon Chasing and Drapetomania

The sunset last night really was quite incredible, in-fact the Wife and I both said probably the best we'd seen from our abode over the years.

There had been rain throughout the day and there was that lovely fresh feeling you get in the air during the summer months and a couple of glasses of wine down and an hour in to the movie, we decided to hit the pause button and enjoy it in all its glory.

It only looked like this for maybe twenty minutes where despite being well past 10.00pm the neighbours houses almost had a glow to them.

I'd have loved to be by the river waiting for that 4 ft twitch but to be honest in the summer months Chub tend to be my target species, because well, I prefer Chub to Barbel probably because locally anyway the Barbel numbers are few and far between, but I do like surface fishing for Chub and the summer months can bring them out from their cover for a look-see.

So a 6.00am start where after wading through the wet long grass it was only after the event that I realised that was a stupid thing to do. Because not only would I have wet trousers from ankle to knee for the next couple of hours, but that in the car I had a set of waterproof trousers.

Tw*t

And no, its not an i !!!

Now Researchers have managed to reproduce the way poppies create morphine in the wild, but warn that the technology needs urgent regulation

Home-brewed heroin could become a reality, scientists have warned, following the creation of yeast strains designed to convert sugar into opiates. 

 

The advance marks the first time that scientists have artificially reproduced the entire chemical pathway that takes place in poppy plants to produce morphine in the wild.

Scientists warned that the findings could pave the way for opium poppy farms being replaced by local morphine “breweries” and called for urgent regulation of the technology. 

In theory, opium brewing would be no more difficult to master than DIY beer kits, raising the possibility of people setting up Breaking Bad-style drug laboratories in their own homes.

Now thankfully despite being quite a few poppy flowers down this neck of the wood, probably not a harvestable amount anyway and not a bad thing I suppose and thankfully I had chub to keep me occupied.

I love chub in their summer colours and when I got to the river in just 48 hours the river had transformed from the recent rain.

Not only was it up, but those previously crystal clean swims where I could see 5 foot down, now I could just about make out the bottom.

Oddly the banker swim never had any rises to the bread crust whatsoever so I had to go on the rove to find the fish.

There really isn't much science to this technique of chub fishing off the top.

I use a size 6 hook and either a piece of crust or a large piece of flake squeezed tight to the shank. They often come up to inspect the bait and nudge it from time to time but usually with a large boil on the surface you know the fish has engulfed the bread offering.

The Chub are often tucked well away from the minnow mosh pit and are near overhanging trees, rafts and reed beds. They are Chub after all and they like the comfort of a snag they can head for if they unfortunately let their guards slip.

And slip their guard they did !!!!

They has switched on with the extra water over their heads, so 5 fish landed and the best going 4lb 9 ounces the smallest maybe 3lbs. It was 9 degrees when I started fishing and 13 degrees when I left. 

Once the sun was high in the sky you see, ones plans were scuppered. 

They were just not interested whatsoever and despite seeing dark shapes milling around a few of the swims they were a cautious as anything. Slow sinking flake brought instant pulls and plucks but these were small fish with eyes clearly far bigger than their bellies.   

Lovely Chubbly, I thoroughly enjoyed that !!!