Warwickshire Avon - Car Boots and Carriwitchets

An hour an a half before the gates open for the Car Boot at Stratford-Upon-Avon Racecourse the boot peddlers were already queuing up. God knows why they got there so early, maybe to get the best pitch or something ? but the problem for me was that the access to the track that leads down to the river was blocked.

Not only that but the Evesham Road roundabout construction that has already taken an obsence amount of time was adding to the grid lock. After a conversation with the orange jacketed jobsworths I decided to go somewhere else whilst listening to a local giving them a piece of his mind, with expletives I might have to Google.  

A complete nightmare basically where I could have had an extra hour in bed. However there was a certain swim I wanted to fish, the 'chub peg' which is a known hot spot for the seat box frequenters. So in the end with no end in sight of the chaos I decided to go to the syndicate stretch instead where after a bite less fifteen minutes upon moving the gippa stop up the line it decided to break. Damnnn it !!! not going well now is it, leaving me to set-up again.

In the end I decided that I HAD to fish that swim to I turned the Jimny around, stopped off for a bloody pressure reducing de-caff coffee and headed back to where I wanted to fish originally,

Luckily the car boot attenders had managed to get in to the site and the thankfully the gate to the track was now clear. Now I'd not fished this area before but Nic was put on to it by a member of the local club, where it turns out the chub like this area.

I wanted to try my waders out as well and this this swim is perfect for it. You need to wade out as well because the cast between two areas of cover can only really be made when you're in the water. So simple tactics a float and maggots as feed and maggots on the hook.

The 'hot peg' is probably fished more than any other swims on this stretch but it didn't take long to get the first bite. Initially it was small roach and perch but after about half an hour I managed my first chub. Nic wasn't wrong when he said you need beefed up tackle, because once they are hooked for a good few seconds they try and mimic a barbel.

The size 16 hook thankfully was nailed in the upper lip and that was never going to come out. Not a huge chub but caught on the float it's a great way to fish.

 

It wasn't exactly prolific I must admit but in a few hours I managed 3 decent chub, I lost one to a hook pull after doing me over good and proper, and the rest were small roach, perch and a pike (I think) that decided it liked maggots as well that bit through the line.

The last hour I fished with a broken catapult so that wasn't ideal because after making a Heath Robinson fix I only managed a couple of pouch full's before having to make the fix again. So one of those sessions really, not a good start and not a good ending, oh well I caught some fish so that's the main thing.