Warwickshire Avon - Massacres and Mathematicasters

A rare night out with Mrs Newey, so a pizza was enjoyed with some duck and 5 spices fries followed by a get together in Warwick for a mates 50th.  A good turn it it was too with some people in attendance I've not seen for probably 10 years or so. Half way through dry January I had to fall off the wagon for this one 😇

Now it used to be rumoured in Manchester that the inhabitants of Salford all suffered from a massive physiological abnormality occasioned by the amount of chips they ate. The rumour is, of course, absolutely without foundation, in spite of the fact that Salfordians do eat chips with everything.

None of this has anything to do with freshwater baits except to illustrate the point that most anglers offer their quarry a diet as unvaried as that of the unfortunate Salfordians. 

Most anglers will use maggots, bread and worms and nothing else. Some will even fish for a lifetime using only one of these. Me well, I don't fall in to that category, variety is the spice of life. 

Anyway with an Uber back and a nice lie in I was late getting out for this short session as I had to drop the Wife off in Warwick to get her motor so I fully expected to see a car or two when I got to the parking area but, no, weirdly I would have the stretch to myself. The river looked in cracking condition as well so I'm sure a bite was on the cards.

I was going to trot but I couldn't be bothered to get some bread on-route so half a loaf of bread would have to do in order to catch a chub. 

So a roving stretch with a few swims primed with mash and then a rather large piece of breadflake on the hook. When the water is this sort of colour bread fluttering about the current is irresistible to the greedy chub.

The sun was bright and with the temperature around 5 degrees it was very pleasant indeed I must admit, and for the life of me I couldn't understand why I was the only angler 👀

A rather grim discovery in one of the swims though, a Canada Goose had been eaten in almost its entirety with only the bones and carcass remaining.  Maybe an injured bird from the shoot that evaded the hunting dogs and an otter had finished it off.

3 swims down though without even a nibble I decided to head down to the very end swim where there is a tree to the right with provides a nice haven for any fish in the swim.

It didn't take long to get a bit either, a couple of plucks and then a few seconds later an unmistakable bite and I struck in to a solid lump. A cracking scrap in the flow and I was fully expecting a bigger fish when it finally surfaced as it was taking line at one point.

Not that long but it had certainly been feeding well in the floods I'd imagine, a nice healthy plump fish. Another couple of swims fished but without success sadly so I called the session early on one nice chub.