Warwickshire Avon - Bribery and Bevipennate

Inevitably those fishing in busy areas has its issues, you know that mob of young thugs, snotty-nosed and out at elbow, who stampede along the bank and dive in a bunch upon your keepnet. They haul it out of the water and bellow in chorus: 'Cor, you ain't doin' so well, are you, mister. My dad/bruvver/uncle caught fahsands bigger 'n these last week. Wotcher bin doin' all day, dozy old git?'

The traditional answer used to be swift clip over the collective earholes. But in these days of child psychology and rapid communication, such an act can bring over the horizon in a matter of minutes the vast and menacing figure of dad/bruvver/uncle or policeman. 

So it is best to resort to a psychological technique long acknowledged for its effectiveness: bribery.

Depending on the size of the mob and how much you are in funds, a distribution of small change on the promise that they will disappear from your life forever should send them scuttling for the nearest ice-cream stall. 

The danger of this technique is that on the way they might meet another pack of delinquents and announce that the silly old git down the bank gave them all that money to clear off. Nothing is more certain to ensure that you will not lack company for long.

An alternative, but anti-social, technique is to tell them that you are fishing in a bad spot, but that a chap about half a mile downstream has caught so many pike, barbel, carp, barracudas and killer whales that the zoo is sending down a special tank to pick them up.

It's anti-social because it means that some other innocent angler will be lumbered with the little monsters. But you can salve your conscience with the thought that you would rather it were his problem than yours. 

To narrow down the possibilities of that happening mind you, just do what I and many do and that's fish in the much quieter places where the only person you are likely to see, is another angler or a dog walker who isn't that bothered that they are trespassing. 

Now talking about anti-social pike were the target down at the Warwickshire Avon where I've caught some nice ones over the years. Those bait fish that reside here keep the predators hanging around especially at this time of year when it's brass monkey weather and often this area is an easy meal for the lazy crocs. 

Probably not ideal conditions if I'm honest but a run or two would be nice. My biggest from here 14lb if I recall !! which is shown above but over the years there has been far bigger pike caught. To be honest I need to cast my net wider and that will be addressed because I'm treading the same path. It's nice to mix things up hence this pike session, but the venues too, I need up a kick up the backside.

Anyway I didn't expect the sport to be prolific but the odd bite would be nice wouldn't it. However I fished around 4 hours without a sniff !!! 🙈 . I fished 3 main areas and twitched the bait, wobbled it on the retrieve but the pike just didn't seem to be feeding, or just not in the area at all.

There was plenty of fish topping which was encouraging, a decent bream and plenty of roach which made me think I should have stopped off for some maggots. I bet a groundbait feeder approach would have worked well today despite the conditions.

The float never moved though, not even a small pull or a dropped take. An hour before my curfew I was tempted to go home in to the warmth because the noise of the planes were doing my head in !!!

Going around and around and around and F'ing Around !!!

They were spoiling what would have been a nice and peaceful session. I can only assume some training flights were going on because not only the planes were doing it but the helicopters too. Against ones better judgement I decided to stay though where at dusk I was praying for a bite, but nope, sadly it didn't happen, so another blank to add to the collection.