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The most common of these is that the canal bank becomes bathed in golden sunlight, that the cooling towers have been replaced by waving palms, that the towpath is covered with golden sand and exotic starfish.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.