Warwickshire Avon - Blisters and Blandiloquence

It's quite hard to believe that the deck a good friend of mine Wardy fitted had been down for almost 15 years and up until this winter was still pretty robust. 

This blog of mine, now 13 years old started when after a 20 year lay off from fishing I realised with so much water around me and some solitude to seek with a young family, hey I know what, I'll take up fishing again. 

Now there were a few areas that were starting to rot and when I went through it with with the leg of one of the garden chairs and nearly took out the fence with it, I had to bite the bullet and get it replaced. 

Now I did think about slabbing it over but after ripping up the deck boards and cutting them up in to firewood for winter the frame, apart from the odd place was still pretty sound, so as I hate DIY and also a cheapskate, I decided to change all the deck boards myself. 

It's a decent sized deck 6x3.5m and only around 500 quid to replace with the replacement joists too. Oh and >600 odd bleeding screws, this will be fun !! But the weather was fair no time like the present it won't get done looking at it now will it. 

Wardy as well, he's almost semi retired now spending more time in Spain at his villa than actually working (yes I am jealous) so with the Wife thinking once it was ripped it she was going to be looking at a mess in the garden for a good while, I decided to make her eat her own thoughts.

I'm not used to this kind of work but a hearty breakfast can make all the difference. I need better power tools as well because the electric screw driver I have lasts up to about 3 deck boards before it needs charging again. 

Still I got on with it and 3 days of on and off work it was complete thankfully and even the Wife was impressed with some rare praise. The problem is the rest of the garden looks tired now so I've started on that as well now, no rest for the wicked.

Now talking of batteries after getting a new hedge trimmer recently I headed on down to the syndicate stretch to do some back maintenance and also see if there was ant signs of the carnage that some stretches of the Warwickshire Avon had seen over the last week where loads of fish have unfortunately succumbed to their demise due to what ? maybe we will never know.  

But how stupid of me because I'd only gone and left the battery at home 😁🙈 to that would have to wait for another day. So in the end I decided to head to another stretch to try and pick up a chub, and also a last gasp barbel.

I couldn't believe how much the river had risen in 48 hours when I fished last and it was clear maybe fishing for the chub off the top wasn't the best idea. They were just not interested at all. There was a few other anglers on the stretch and my favourite swim taken so I headed upstream where I concentrated my efforts. 

I did manage a nice plump summer chub because of a perfect cast where within seconds of the bread hitting the surface it nailed it.

But then apart form two missed strikes from smaller chub only two swims showed any signs of fish that were up for a feed. Dusk was an hour away so after also forgetting my rod rest I got set-up for a barbel with glugged dynamite hot-fish boilies and a PVA bag of freebies.

It was clear that the swim was full of small chub though because after the first cast it was non stop plucks, pulls and bangs on the rod tip. They managed to take the bait from the hair a couple of times too and I need a rethink on bait choice.

In thee end I managed a 3 swinger chub that really were determined to get caught. The barbel were nowhere to be seen, but then this area is hot and miss anyway. Nice to see some extra water on for once, not only will help with extra oxygen for the fish but will make the parched looking greenery vibrant again.