Warwickshire Avon - Nymphalids and Nympholepsy

I remember the first camera phone I had back in 2002 when for my birthday I spoilt myself and bought a Panasonic GD87, which was a flip phone with video and picture taking capability.

The actual pictures taken were literally the same size as the screen, so roll on 20 years the quality of the pictures taken on modern phones really are quite incredible really especially when the lenses are so small and the pictures so big with millions of pixels. 

After a bit of a butterfly drought in this neck of the week this year there seems to be plenty about now which is encouraging.

I even saw a woman the other day with a net and a clipboard I'm assuming recording the different species are frequenting the local area. Ok only the humdrum for us this morning but a few other species were not playing ball like these two were. 

Anyway to the fishing, with a couple of butterflies down on route to the first swim on a stretch that Sam had chosen the evening before, ok it was very much groundhog day where we'd fish maggots for gudgeon and also bread on the surface for chub, but so what, especially when we had the stretch to ourselves. 

Sam like me loves this technique to catch wary chub in the summer because despite them sometimes ignoring it completely, however it's often when the bleak and the other smaller bait fish start attacking it where Mr Chub decides to get in on the act and shows them who is boss.

This first swim downstream there is an overhanging tree and often the fish are tucked up tight to the far bank cover, but feed bits of bread most of the time they venture out for a nose, and when they are feeding with confidence that's the time to put a piece down with a hook buried in it. 

The problem is they take it quite a long way down the swim so you need to crouch down to focus your eyes down the line of attack and Sam was demonstrating the method in this picture perfectly. 

Nothing big turned up today but it is great to see Sam with the confidence to bully the chub away from snags when hooked, and boy, like me, they know this convenient stretch intimately so it's not an easy task. He is turning in to a cracking little angler that's for sure, I hope his interest doesn't waver like mine did when I had a lay off for 20 years. 

After we'd got through the half a loaf of bread it was on to the gudgeon where there are plenty here, the problem is there is an abundance of other species that like the maggots too so the key is to use a wand rod with a light running set-up where you ignore the taps and wait for the tip to properly go round. 

Ok, not quite cricket but even Sam who loves catching minnows knows that we need to adapt the set-up to target the species we are after.

Only a whistle stop two hours but enough to satisfy the fishing fix for both of us but you know me, I like to mix it up with most of my fishing sessions so I'll have a think what to do where to go without resorting to the familiar. I'm lacking a little enthusiasm at the minute but these sessions are palatable, so not all lost. 

It is becoming a little groundhog day'ish though, I freely admit it !!!!