Warwickshire Avon - Bronze Bosses and Brontophobia

Another evening, another chub session on the Warwickshire Avon, this time further downstream from where I was last time, and boy was it alive with fish. I might trot some maggots on a future session because I'm sure it would be a bite a chuck, the amount of bait fish was incredible. 

I did bring my barbel with a few bits and pieces because well, why not might as well give it a go rather than moving from swim to swim to try and pick up a chub using floating bread crust.

The ground was proper rock hard when I strayed on to the wheat field but the grains seemed to be fat and vibrant, but then what would I know about farming, probably as much as I know about fishing.

This fishing method couldn't be any more simpler though, a big size 6 hook tied directly to the line and drift some pieces of bread down to find out exactly where those often shy chub are hiding. They seem to be on to the bait really quickly at the start of new season where for the first month I do little else. 

It didn't take long to catch the first fish either after the first swim had chub queuing up to take the bread off the surface. When they wise up to this technique they can provide the most frustrating of fishing, because nothing worse than seeing a chub come up to the bread, give it a nudge with it nose and then decide, nah I'm not taking that.

When their cautiousness goes out the window though the feeding couldn't be any more different because in the shallow water you can often see a bow wave on the waters surfaces before they suck in the bread with the huge mouth of theirs. 

In 3 swims I managed 4 fish with the biggest over 4lb I'd imagine, however it decided that it didn't want a selfie with me and launched itself out of the net and managed to escape before I got the chance.

In another swim I got the chub feeding but I got caught up in some branches when retrieving a missed strike and stupidly I forgot my stash of hooks so that put pay to that. The group of chub had some freebies at my expense so it out with the barbel rod. 

I'd usually put some droppers of hemp and pellets in and fish a bait over that but I decided PVA bags full of the aforementioned might have been the better option.

A small glugged dynamite hot fish boilie on the hair and and underarm cast in to the chosen swim to fish. One piece of bread caught up in the bag that I throw out in to the swim was hovered up by a chub in no time at all so I did think the first fish I'd caught would be a greedy chevin.

But no 10 minutes after the bait being out a sharp chub type pull out of nowhere a 3ft twitch and I'm in to a hard fighting barbel. It powered off downstream first but then after turning it to get away from a snag it then tried to get under my feet before powering off mid river.

Not a huge barbel by any means but certainly giving a good account for itself !! I didn't weigh it but after a quick selfie after letting it rest in the net and then the same again, it didn't take any time at all to recover which was nice to see. Unlike me fit as a fiddle !!

After that was returned a small chub decided that he wanted in on the act too and as I only brought 2 PVA bags I decided that I'd forget fishing in to dark and a little beyond, and come back better prepared next time.

Considering what's happened on the Warwickshire Avon not a millions of miles from here I was very pleasantly surprised that this is another area that has escaped the issues that some others areas of the Avon have suffered.