Warwickshire Avon - Detectives and Detritivores

I'd not seen Sinister (2012) for a while, it's one of those movies if you've not seen it before can give you a few spine tingles even after a second watch. 

True-crime writer Ellison Oswald (Ethan Hawke) is in a slump, he hasn't had a best seller in more than 10 years and is becoming increasingly desperate for a hit.

So, when he discovers the existence of a snuff film showing the deaths of a family, he vows to solve the mystery. 

He moves his own family into the victims' home and gets to work. However, when old film footage and other clues hint at the presence of a supernatural force, Ellison learns that living in the house may be fatal.

It hits an absurdly high number of horror clichés, but manages to do it in a pretty successful manner. I suppose it features many more laugh out moments than you might expect from a horror of this type. Not sure if that's a pro or a con, the Wife wouldn't enjoy it I know that.

Now the pros and cons of fishing the Avon for Barbel is, well there ain't many of them for a start, but if you do get one often it's a big'un. Also they often bite at the witching hour (one of Buffalo Si's videos here) so fishing during the day isn't often that productive. Si has put me on to his spots which is kind of him and I plan to fish those in due course.. 

It suits my fishing style though because I'm not one to sit behind motionless rods. 

The thought of fishing two rods on the Trent for example for hours on end is almost like water torture for my restless legs and I just wouldn't  it, it's just not for me.

That's why the short sessions are ideal for me, rock up before dusk and leave shortly afterwards. 

I had planned to get out earlier in the week but the predictive rain was nothing like what we got as a couple of times I had wanted to head out the heavens opened and I just couldn't be bothered.

Anyway I had one swim in mind for this session where a recent fallen tree provides some nice cover but I'd not only caught barbel here before (best 12lb 6oz) but I'd also seen some recently milling around when I've been fishing for the chub.  

Best laid plans and all that, because a fella and his son were already there when I'd parked the car and he was heading to the exact swim I wanted to fish. I've spoken to him a few times in-fact he was fishing with his Dad a few days ago where his Dad out fished him, a proper doing over 😀 so didn't mind to be honest. 

The river was properly gin clear and taking a nose at the first swim a group of chub spooked off also immediately and headed straight to some thick cover for shelter. When it's like this I've found it can be a complete waste of time so there is a no rush to get fishing.

In the end I headed down to a deeper area where the calamity ensued, you see after nattering to ex postie John who just happened to be having a nose at the stretch it turns out he had been fishing a certain section of the Warwickshire Avon where he's be catching Barbel up to 16lb or so, 48 doubles in one season in its heyday. Some of those fish appeared in the Angling Times, which was probably a mistake !!

You see after having it almost to himself the stretch was eventually a syndicate with the farmer offered a pot of gold by a well known angler who had it for a good while, in-fact I was a member for the last season before the farmer changed his mind where I never managed one barbel, just some clonking chub. 

John fished it for a while but then decided to concentrate on a private friends and family stretch on the next section upstream. The very area and others saw a fill kill sadly where now there isn't any fry in the margins or fish topping, he decided to stop counting at 20 dead barbel as it was so depressing. I've found exactly the same downstream sadly seemingly devoid of fish, even though I am going to try again in winter to see if fish have migrated from other stretches. 

Anyway back to the fishing, after putting out 3 bait droppers of hemp and pellet I somehow managed to slip where my whole right foot right foot slipped in to the river, with me falling on my backside breaking my reading glasses in the process.

My walking boots sodden like a sponge and my trousers soaked right up to my calf it wasn't exactly a pleasant sitting there, luckily dusk was only an hour away. Still before I settled down to wait for that pull round somehow I managed to flick off 2 PVA bags on the cast, not going well this, at least the fish were having a nice feed 😠

The bites and plucks started almost straight away but it was only on the stroke of dusk were things hotted up a bit. A few decent chub had broke the surface and after a foot pull, and a one proper bite I missed the hair rig was doing its job to avoid hooking the chub.

But chub can be determined and eventually one hooked itself and a fish was on. Only a small fish though and at least I hadn't blanked. Then all went quiet, like dead where I was expecting another bite or two. At this point with the amount of insects around and a wet foot, I decided to cut my losses where I left 45 minutes after official dusk. One of those session !!