Warwickshire Avon - Bevy's and Bestiocracy

Now the freebie acid house glow-stick barbel rest didn't quite make it market sadly, you see it was meant to be attached to the Angling Times the 3rd of November (my birthday) 1994 when the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act introduced a number of changes to the law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights, clamping down on unlicensed rave parties. 

In the end three disgorgers were attached instead because sadly financially it just wouldn't work, and to be honest the backlash might have been too much. 

An opinion divider that's for sure !!!

Thankfully there wasn't the vitriol slingers of facebook and Instagram back then as it might have brought the internet down if it was a freebie (this my recreation), as not everyone like the joys of repetitive beats. 

I can only imagine if the face was changed to a dove ecstasy pill as originally planned, not quite the reading demographic, maybe a Werther's Original theme might have been better 😮🕊🕊🕊!!!! But angling needs to attract a younger crowd, it always has done because in modern times especially, there is so much that angling can offer the youngster. 

Anyway with the kids now on holiday Sam pestered me to take him fishing which is good, so after a busy day at work after making the dinner, Sam and I and his newly purchased monkey that weighs 4.5lb's were off to one of our favourite areas on the Warwickshire Avon to try and catch a chub off the top in challenging conditions.  

You see the river is back to low and being clear again which can often leave you wondering where the heck are the actual fish, because the river can seem devoid of fish in swims you can see what you'd be fishing for.

This stretch can often seem like jungle warfare but that is good, because it provides so much cover and escape routes for chun they like it down here because of that. From various vantage points trickling down some bits of bread on the surface if the chub have some confidence they will rise to take the bread off the surface, often nudging it a few times first before inhaling it out of sight.

Sam is now a dab hand at this technique and he was first on the rod to catch a fish from this diminutive waterway. It was the third swim that did the business for Sam which was a small'ish chub for this area but it gave him a right old battle but no match for angling skills.

It was really deep though despite being quite short in length, it will be a nice fish to catch in winter when it has put on some timber and proudly displaying its summer bronze colouring. Once you catch one fish this way often the swim goes dead so its best to keep on the move to try and find more fish.

We had exhausted the lower pegs so retraced our steps where it was my turn to try and catch a fish. Out of the blue.

"Dad, did you see that ?"

"What  ?"

"A big black creature just came from there and went straight in to the water"

"An otter ?"

"Well it could be, I've not seen one before have I"

So we went to the swim where he saw it where we tried for chub off the top for ten minutes but the creature was nowhere to be seen. We headed up to the swim above which has some cover at the far side where it was clear with the animal noises and rustlings coming from there that there was something in residence.

"Dad, look, over there quick"

Then we both couldn't believe our eyes, an otter popped out from the end of the cover by some reeds followed by another one, and then another. Three otters in residence 🤯 WOW!!! I've never seen that before despite seeing countless otters over the years, I've never seen three together. A mum and two fully grown pups, who knows, but those resident barbel will be watching their backs from now one that's for sure.

Dusk was still a good hour and a half away and they couldn't care less we were there. We headed downstream to see if we could get them on video, but they were nowhere to be seen after that. There has always been otters on this stretch in-fact this location was where I discovered one that had been hit by a car, mink too as well that take up residence on the island, but three, I really was amazed. 

Sam had seen his first 'wild' otter, and to see three at the same time, what an introduction. Anyway after two kingfishers flew by at a ridiculous pace we had a few swims left try and catch some more chub.

 After Sam lost 2 that buried themselves into the reeds for the inevitable , I managed a nice fish of 4lb and 9 ounces that fought like a demon. I thought I'd lose it on a couple of occasions but managed to land it after an epic battle.

We'd ran out of swims now and on the way back to the car tried two that we caught from before where Sam managed the smallest of the evening, that was slightly smaller than his first one. Quite an eventful few hours and those that say fishing is boring should live in our shoes, they might have a different outcome.