Barbara the Barbel Update - Pt2

 Can you send some luck our way !!! 😀

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.8

One of the most insidious hazards of a day's fishing is the possible psychological effect. Being wrapped up so many layers of clothing, staring for hours at a tiny float, and perhaps over-compensating for early symptoms of dehydration, can have certain disorientating results. Deprived of sensory perception through the normal channels, the brain becomes susceptible to all kinds of hallucinatory phenomena.

The most common of these is that the canal bank becomes bathed in golden sunlight, that the cooling towers have been replaced by waving palms, that the towpath is covered with golden sand and exotic starfish. Along the path, dressed only in a couple of strands of seaweed, floats a person bearing a striking resemblance to either Miss Bardot or Miss Welch.

Adjusting your loincloth and dropping your shoulder bag of jungle fresh peanuts, you rise to greet her. Hand in hand, you leap gracefully over the sand, dive into the warm crystal water and-after you have knifed a man-eating shark and a couple of alligators-you leap back together through the surf for what promises to be something rather special.

At this point you are generally seized by a feeling of creeping cold. You find that your left leg has gone over the bank, your wellie is filling with water, the cooling towers have come back and Miss Bardot (or Miss Welch as the case may be) has disappeared.

Once the hallucination has ended, the only course of action left is to pack up and make for the nearest point of hospitality to take something for the after effects.

Here, you can observe the mass effects of sensory deprivation on your fellow anglers. These take the form of a refusal to believe the most obvious truths. You tell them, for instance, of the fight you had with the 20-lb pike on roach tackle; of the way you played it for seven hours until finally you turned its monstrous head to the bank. 

Of how it bit through the handle of the landing net, leaving you no alternative but to grab it by the tail. Of how it turned on you, chomped off the toe of your wader and, with a massive leap, splashed back into the middle of the lake.

You tell them this, a patent and irrefutable truth, and they stare incredulously-one of the first signs of incipient mass hysteria. After a few seconds one of them breaks into a giggling fit. Instantly they all join in. 

The air is full of inane comments like: 'What did it do then-stick its head out and blow a raspberry?', 'That wasn't a pike-you'd hooked the corporation's killer whale!' and 'Here-have some birdseed bloody good bait for flying fish!'

There are two ways of dealing with an outbreak such as this. You can hold up your hand and shout above the din: 'Drinks all round-on me!'

This will bring them to their senses immediately and ensure a reverential silence, broken only by gasps of astonishment and cries of awe and agreement, as you repeat the story.

The second method, though less effective, is cheaper. You simply ignore them and console yourself with the thought that they have once and for all forfeited any chance of hearing how you took thirty brace of rainbow trout in two hours from a disused stretch of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Anyway enough of that, my fishing has been largely curtailed of late because my Wife had shoulder surgery a week ago and I've had to step up to the plate and basically run the household. I've said it before I realise how much she does when she is otherwise indisposed but when I've have to bath and wash her hair etc without getting her wound wet, and get stuck in to the never ending washing it will be nice for her to get back to 'normal' functionality again. 

A couple of hours here and there is all I can muster up at the minute and as I type this I've two appointments later on I've got to be chaperone for, so any opportunities to get that fishing fix needs to be grabbed with both hands. 

So a need to get some lucozade and feel good food (chicken soup and sourdough) I decided to nip in to the syndicate stretch to try and winkle out a chub. I didn't have long but the pool swim here has some nice fish in and within 10 minutes I had a fish on. I fed some pieces of bread and after the initial bleak attack eventually a rather larger hoover appeared causing a rather large wake on the surface. 

Usually I get the chub confident in feeding first, however on this occasion I got the bread on the hook and straight out in the middle of the pool where the bread after floating for around 30 seconds disappeared from view and the line tightened. 

That meant the fish was on, and it was a decent fish too, heading straight to some cover right by my feet. I had it under control though and soon after it was safely in the landing net. And that was my lot, no more fish and no more rises. A lovely mint chub though, which has reminded me, with winter on the way (sorry pensioners for two-tier Keir and the applauding Labour entourage that have taken your winter fuel payments away ) need to make that cheesepaste. 

Barbara the Barbel Update

Warwickshire Avon - Stealth Modes and Stalagmometers

As I've said before I'm not quite feeling it at the minute, but I don't think I'm alone on that matter. The Warwickshire Avon for example is very low indeed and gin clear where fishing can be very tough indeed. The fish just vanish and ok, if you fishing maggots under a float you'd catch some fish, but to put a proper bend in the rod you'll be scratching your head.

You only have to look at the match results on the stretches I fish where matches are won from lots of chublets not from decent sized chub. When the light goes however the change is quite dramatic and those bigger fish start to venture out. 

I don't need to look back at my blog to know it's no different year on year when the conditions are like this. What it is good for is for spotting fish and Sam wanted to go fishing in to dusk and in to dark to try and catch a chub. This stretch can vary quite considerably where it is shallow in the main with some nice gravel runs and also some swims with some decent depth.

After a nose around without really seeing much we settled in a swim with the most depth over the longest length. There are some good chub to be caught here too, in-fact my first 5lb chub and many more after came from here. 

We were lederging bread large pieces of bread under this raft and heading in to dusk I'd feed some mash to get them interested. The bread was getting mullered from small fish from the off and you know when the bread has been extracted from the hook when the 1oz quiver tip stops giving indications.

Not much was happening on the bigger fish front until that is the bats appeared because the first unmissable bite missed. 🙈 In-fact 4 more unmissable bites between Sam and I, things were not going well and we didn't hook up to anything !!! Then bites stopped completely and we left with a tail between our legs !!!

I'm not enjoying it at the minute, that's clear to see over lots of sessions recently so in the morning I actually went to the canal where in two hours I had 4 schoolie Zander fishing deadbaits. Nothing big showed up apart from when a boat went past then something big that was sitting in the shallows came out to chase a fish and caused a rather large disturbance on the water. 

I got back home and with threatened thunderstorms later on in the afternoon (they never happened) Sam again wanted to go out to catch some fish. 

So back out again where we went further afield to catch some more fish with maggots under a float where some small chub were caught was well as some dace, with this one being attacked by a decent looking pike on the retrieve where its scales were scattered everywhere. We also had a chub rod to fish bread off the top where in one swim we witnessed one of the biggest chub we have ever seen circling around the bread like a shark before it vanished, most likely seeing us and spooked off !!!

We tried a few more swims to see what was around where in one swim it really was like an aquarium with all manner of small fish taking the manky maggots and casters without a care in the world, then something happened 👀 You see out of the corner of my eye under my polarised sunglasses I spotted a HUGE, I mean HUGE!!! barbel that showed its flanks in the middle of the 6ft swim and my jaw dropped. 

"SAM, SAM see if you can see this !!!"

I gave him my polarised glasses and the barbel did a slow 180 turn and headed back to the incepting area it was sat it. 

"WOW, WOW it's a MASSIVE BARBEL, Jesus"

Sam wasn't wrong, the biggest barbel I've ever seen close up, let alone him and after a disappointing couple of months I've (we've) now at least a target to aim for, a fish bigger than my Warwickshire Avon PB of 12lb and 14 ounces ?, well I'm sure this fish will beat that for sure. Pincushion distortion and lateral chromatic aberration were noticeable ? no idea, all I know that it was a massive Barbel before is disappeared !!

Are there any other barbel here as well ? only one way to find out I suppose.

You can see why the fish like it here, reed filled shallows either side of this swim that drops off to a decent depth, and there is cover over at the far side and also to the left and right. There is one big problem though and that is a rather large snag in the middle of the swim. It's difficult to know what it is but it's manmade and a rather large obstruction that balloons off the bed. 

After consulting the Barbel oracle James Denison he's given me some tips to target this specific fish. One big issue is the amount of pellet nibbling chub/chublets that also frequent this swim, but I've a few different approaches to try that I'm hoping will come to fruition,

So for a while I'll be operating in Stealth Mode !!, It's time to press that button. From the lacklustre despair of late, I've got the mojo back again. 💪😎.