Warwickshire Stour - Skewers and Skiagraphy

The weather has been very mixed indeed, at least we have had some rain to top up the rivers and breaks in-between to have a BBQ or too. Pork Souvlaki is hard to beat especially when you really only need 10 minutes or so of marinade time.

Oregano, lemon zest and juice and paprika as well as a good pinch of salt and home made tzatziki sauce with extra garlic. Souvlaki simply means “meat on skewers.” don't forget to soak the skewers in water if you're using wooden ones as they burn rather quickly if you don't. 

Now coarse fishing has suffered for too long from a cloth cap image. The public at large tends to think of the angler as a rough-looking chap in wellingtons, raincoat and a flat cap, sitting on a canal bank swigging light ale from a bottle. 

This misconception has grown up because the angler generally is a rough-looking chap in wellingtons, raincoat and a flat cap, sitting on a canal bank swigging light ale from a bottle. This image is doing him no good at all, even though he might be anything from a redundant dustman to a captain of industry or a brain surgeon.

It does him no good, for instance, when public money is being handed out. (Government funds, such as they are, for the improvement and maintenance of recreational waters, tend to be given more readily to schemes for making the waters fit for power boats and water skiers than to improving the angling facilities.)

It does him no good in the tarted-up 'fun' pubs of the waterside. While the weekend sailors are handed their halves of bitter and camparis and soda in a flurry of tugged forelocks, the anglers are greeted with the suggestion that they might be more comfortable in the public bar, in the garden, in the shed or in the pub down the road.

So the image must be changed. The angler must join the In Crowd, the Fun People, the trendy, dashing, handsome, young Colour Section swingers who appear in telly commercials going ecstatic over the taste of a fish finger or drooling over the silken sheen of a new toilet roll.

Only then will it be realised that under the angler's drab exterior is an epic hero, a swashbuckler, very bit as dashing as the amateur sailor prancing about in his Mickey Mouse commodore's cap and blue blazer with silver buttons.

With small rivers keeping the juices flowing I ventured over to the river Stour to try and winkle out a few fish. Sam wanted to join me but he went to the Warwick Folk Festival with one of his friends and his parents so at least I was bankside early.

The Stour was lower than I thought it was going to be but here there are the odd deeper swims where the fish are often holding up. I don't fish the Stour in the summer because it can be difficult to get in to the swims because it is very overgrown.

I had the whole stretch to myself though so it was a roving mission to try and find the fish. It didn't take long to get the first bite either when this 3lber decided that it would like the half a lob worm.

In the end I had 3 nice chub and some bits with bread or lobworm as bait and also a pike (I assume) that decided that it would like a worm too and bit me off on the first bend of the rod. I fancy trying for pike in the winter on the Stout because I'm sure there are some nice fish to be picked up. They are not fished for either I'd imagine.

After a few hours the rain started so I thought that would be a nice time to leave because I didn't fancy a soaking. I do love rivers like this because they are hardly fished for starters and it's nice to see what small river like this hold.

Nothing huge for me today, the biggest chub just over 3lb I'd imagine. I've caught them heading towards 5lb in the past but those tend to show themselves in winter, not in the summer but still, a few nice chub I'm not complaining.