Warwickshire Avon - Légion étrangère's and Lecanomancy

This was Ben's choice from the schools book fair, and to be honest, I'd got to put my hands up because after a rather lovely lamb curry (still on the bone) that was put in front of me last weekend, the repercussions are still evident. 

Thankfully the pungency is weakening as the days and hours go by, but God knows how much garlic was used, enough to get any Transylvanian nobleman quaking in their boots, that's for certain. !! 

Anyway at least this section of the Warwickshire Avon still has some nice weed and reeds to give the fish some cover. It's handy as it's on the way home after working from the office at MIRA but with the temperature on the car saying 30 degrees I wouldn't be fishing for long that's for sure.

Chub off the top was the plan because I could see them under my polarised sunglasses with the river being so low and clear, and I do like a bit of sight fishing I must admit. 

What I didn't expect was that the first chuck of some freebies was out of nowhere a huge chub of around 5-6lb took the biggest piece within a second of the bread hitting the surface !!!

Did it come back for more ?  errrrrr no !!!!

I'm sure I must have spooked it, and that's how the session continued to be honest, because the fish seemed to be very cagey indeed for some reason. I watched probably 6 or 7 chub with the bait within their mouths but they either ejected it straight away, or I failed to hook up 😬

In the end the elevated banker swim came up with the goods where I had them competing for the slow sinking bread, because they refused to take it off the surface oddly. Problem is because it's such an intimate swim they all spooked after landing the hard fighting 3lber.

I retraced my steps to try and catch another but with the sun beating down when in the full sun I called it a day after a couple of hours and decided to head back home instead. Boy it was a scorcher, the new hat is perfect though, despite looking like a reject from the French Foreign Legion !!

I've heard on good authority (a bloke I bumped in to when leaving the padlocked gate 😀 ) that there has been some barbel coming out, so with the temperature dropping I'm planning to have a go in to dusk to see if I can catch one myself.

I prefer chub to barbel as a species personally, but there isn't an angler that has caught a barbel that doesn't' recount their fighting power, you can see why anglers target them. Problem for me is I fish mainly short sessions, so an hour drive to a productive stretch and an hour back, is often how long my barbel sessions are. If I trot for them it's all day usually, because I struggle more than a couple of hours behind motionless rods, that's why fishing at the witching hour seems to suit me.