Warwickshire Stour - Bread Eaters and Breastsummers (River Roach PB Content)

I must be getting old, you see after munching my way through some pork scratching and a couple of copper red brown ales, I signed up for the mild and pie evening in the adopted local, where 4 1/2 pint different mild's will be accompanied with a proper beef and ale pie with a dollop of mash.

For £15 quid I thought it was a no brainer !! The Wife rolling her eyes to ones demise in to full on coffin dodger. Still I'll be still be raving it up in a month for 3 days and nights, I'm not quite there yet, well I don't think I am anyway.

Whilst I was enjoying the ramblings of the Landlord I decided there and then after looking at the river levels I'd venture to the Stour in the morning, as when it's up find a slack often a bite is forthcoming.

Now it's quite common in London to see geese flying overhead or swans. Along the Thames right into the heart of the City herons now stalk the shallows and various wildlife bodies tell us that owls roost in Parliament Square while kestrels hover above the Commercial Road.

Anywhere in the vicinity of London's bigger parks can be relied on to produce a bit of overspill wildlife and reports of duck wandering across Kensington High Street with their ducklings coming along behind them are not unusual.

However, a local newspaper (1893) once carried a report of a far more surprising wildlife encounter in Kensington. A gentleman was walking home from work one autumn evening. He'd got as far as halfway up Kensington Church Street when he was struck by what he described to the newspaper reporter as 'a terrific blow to the side of the head'. In fact the bump was so hard that it knocked the man out and he had to be taken to hospital.

One of the witnesses who'd helped the injured man into a local house where brandy was administered described a circumstance that almost certainly accounted for the knock-out blow. When the witness had run up to the man who'd been knocked out he spotted a large fish lying on the pavement nearby. 

Being a fisherman he knew that this was not the sort of fish one buys at a fishmonger's. It was in fact a roach, a common British freshwater fish, but completely inedible. The witness told the newspaper that at first he could not understand how the fish came to be lying in the street, but in helping the injured man to his feet he did not immediately have much time to think about it. 

But as he assisted the man in removing his coat he noticed something very odd indeed. The injured man's head and the shoulder of his coat were dusted here and there with fish scales. The scales were without question from the dead roach that had been found at the scene.

When the newspaper compiled its report on the incident they quoted a professor of zoology as saying that the man was almost certainly felled by a roach dropped by a passing bird, possibly a heron or cormorant.

Curiously, the paper noted with glee, the injured man - who made a full recovery - was called Mr Chub. Now oddly Mr Chub didn't factor at all in todays session because swim after swim after swim trying to find some slack water, those swims that looked like they would give a bite didn't. It was properly cold overnight and a beanie was needed when I got there at dawn . The cars thermometer said 5 degrees, and I could full believe that, so quite a contrast to the mild weather we have been having. 

What I didn't expect that the only bite I had was from a lovely old warrior of a roach that actually is my river PB going 1lb and 9 ounces on the scales. It came from literally the only proper slack on the whole stretch, where after pre-baiting with some mash, half an hour later after 10 minutes of lowering the bread flake secured to a size 6 hook meant for chub, a few taps of the 1 ounce quiver tip I lifted in to a fish.

It came to the surface quite quickly and was amazed to see a decent roach break the surface. No match for the tackle and it was soon in the net, but wow what a result I didn't expect that. 

I rarely catch roach on this stretch, chub being the main species but it just goes to show drop a bait in the right place and you can be rewarded with fish like this from time to time. Totally unexpected and this is why we love fishing, you are often surprised with the luck you get from time to time.

So 5 or 6 swims, one bite and one fish....!!!!

It had plenty of filling out to do as well so come brass monkey time, maybe nudging that magic number. Well maybe not, but still I was happy with the morning roving session, a decent amount of vitamin D and a smile on my face when I left.