Warwickshire Avon - Pluckers and Plousiocracy

I don't really want to think about it but 8 YEARS AGO 🤯when I used to fish the grounds of the magnificent National Trust 16th-century country house Charlecote Park I devised the Poka-Yoke rig. 

Ok not exactly ground breaking in the scheme of things, but after being pestered by gluttonous chub knowing that there were barbel there the change of tactics worked and the chub despite their determination, were never hooked.

When Buffalo Si from River Masters sent me a message to say he'd seen barbel in a particular peg the marked up satellite shot I knew the swim straight away. Now barbel on the stretch are not uncommon, but I've not spotted any in ages thinking about it. 

He'd noticed the hacking down of cover on the stretch as well there and had the same suspicions as me on the culprit(s) and sadly this was one of the swims where cover is no more. 

The majority of it has now been removed leaving sparse cover which sadly won't offer any sanctuary whatsoever, still I thought I might as well give it a go as fishing in to dusk may well get the fish on the munch from wherever they might be hiding.

Although the nights are drawing in I don't mind these short sessions, which are to make use of the light in preparation for fishing, and then settle in to a swim just before dusk, where often the witching hour can often bring a bite from a bigger fish where fishing during the day would be a complete waste of time. 

Anyway a blog post as short as the session because after bait dropping a load of pellets in to this rather intimate swim, I slowly dropped the two halibut wafters in over the top with a rather large hair as dusk was approaching and enjoyed the evening.

The first pluck and pull came pretty quickly an those only amplified in severity as the light levels dropped. Some of the bites really were ridiculous where a chub at one stage pulled the bait so hard it managed to pull one of the wafters through the bait stop and pulled the rod a good couple of foot in the process.

I've often found the initial activity can drop off after dusk and this session was no different. The chub seemed to disappear leaving me to battle with the insects and not much else. The barbel just didn't show before a self imposed curfew time but to be honest not entirely unexpected.

Now there is a swim on this stretch with a ridiculous amount of cover so I might do the same again soon, just to see if any fish that did use that swim as cover have now moved off and taken residence in someone else's abode. Still a nice evening and sunset not all about catching now is it, on to the next one.