Warwickshire Avon - Sewers and Sesquipedalian

A session of two halves this one, you see I fancied going for more of a mooch at a new stretch I’ve been fishing which meant that roving for chub to cover the whole stretch, scoping some swims. But then the first hour I’d fish a deadbait in the marina mouth to try and catch a toothy predator.

When I arrived at dawn the marina was alive with fish. Some dimpling, fish jumping and rising it really was an eyeopener. If I had some maggots, I’d love to know what they were because some of the fish that topped looked a decent size too, well a half decent snack for a pike or zander anyway.

Because of that activity I fully expected a run on the deadbait and me being impatient, within 15 minutes I was wondering what the heck was going on. Then 30 minutes passed, then 45 and then 60 and despite fishing near the boat and also out in the open that bite never materialised.

As soon as the sun came up the fish activity stopped so it was time to get on the move because roving is more style really. I decided to also take the deadbait rod where in the next swim I tried with a slack to my left just away from the main flow I got snagged up. So much so I had to pull for a break but then being unprepared like I always am I didn’t have any spare hooklinks with me, so just the chub fishing it was then.

Now I headed up to the weir and started in there where I’d work myself down the stretch fishing any likely looking swims. On the way I dropped in some mash into a couple of swims that looked good for a chub to be holding up. Some of the swims were covered in a brown slick which clung to the surface in a very suspicious manner indeed, I think I knew what the culprit was.

There is a reason why I keep hand sanitiser in the car that I use after every session and that is because handing fish, using the river water to mix groundbait or to make that bread mash, you really don’t know what the water contains.

So many of our rivers are a dumping ground for dumps (excuse the pun) basically so will often contain all manner of nasties that I’d rather not know about, are released by the water companies. Because, well they are allowed to with the Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) which are permitted, but obviously well all know it also happens outside of the ‘legal dumping’. 

Thankfully this activity has been highlighted more in the media since COVID where natures benefits to wellbeing seems to have gained some traction, and lets hope water quality will only improve going forward.

 Anyway, enough of that as it only depresses me, back to the fishing….

A good hour in the weir and a swim just downstream of it which looked perfect for a bite never produced even a single nibble on the bread and the colour looked perfect for the aforementioned. Trotting was probably the best way to go but I couldn’t really explore the swims really that way. 

I was running out of option and was getting nearer and nearer to where the car was parked but then out of the blue a tentative pull in one of the prebaited swims the tip pulled confidently round. 

A fish a fish !! I knew it wasn’t that big after the first run, but chub do love to fight don’t they.  Only a 3lber but a nice fish all the same. Another fish came soon after and this one was much better at an ounce under 4lb so roving worked and trying as many swims as possible.

And that was my lot. A slightly disappointing session but at least I didn’t blank and at least I got to walk the whole stretch this time. I had the banks to myself which helped, I’m still amazed that the banks are so quiet. I’m not complaining however, I like it that way.