Warwickshire Stour - Fish Spuff and Fistuliforms

Well a dedicated set of fishing reading glasses is a must these days for me because after ruining another set because of getting covered in fish spuff, luncheon meat grease, fish scales, halibut oils and God know what else that just won't budge no matter what I try to clean them, that cannot happen again. 

So I've a work pair and a fishing pair now (and lots of cheapo spares) and that will have to suffice, and ok the fishing pair is still like looking out of the bottom of milk bottles but at least I'm not too worried about that now. Luckily I can claim through work as another pair would have to come out of my coffers and decent glasses are not cheap are they. 

Well what a glorious Sunday morning it was down at the Warwickshire Stour. I had planned to go to the river Alne which is 5 minutes away but a quick look at the back of the club card there was actually a match on, so that put a kibosh to that, the Stour it was then, but then I do love this diminutive waterway. 

Anyway the Stour which is a tributary of the Warwickshire Avon is home to my river roach PB of 1lb and 9 ounces and there are certainly bigger fish to be caught I know that for certain. Chub well I've had 4lbers and that's not bad for a river that winds itself through farmland in the main. 

The conditions let's be honest were not exactly ideal !! clear blue skies in the main and the Stour which usually carries some colour was as clear as I've seen it. It was also very low indeed which meant some tricky landing of the fish from the elevated banks. You often have to make your own swim too, so it's not easy fishing really.  

What I didn't expect was a chub with the first cast of the scaled down chub rig, a small cage feeder full of liquidised bread and a thumbnail squeezed piece on the size 12 Guru feeder special hook. I've been using this rig on the river Leam and I've huge confidence in it. 

These sort of small rivers you need to move from swim to swim and try and locate the fish and those bites can come quick when you actually find them. I didn't take long to find the next fish either in-fact it was the next but one swim after this and a fish of similar stamp.

That came from the pool swim where looking at the far bank I usually fish this swim when there is at least another couple of foot on. It seems to always hold fish this swim and Nic from Avon Angling loves this little river as much as I do. 

The sun highlighting the chub bronze colourings and again a fish of similar stamp to the first. They do fight well these small river chub especially on light tackle and if anyone has a TFG River and Stream gathering dusk and wants to part with it give me a shout, as I'm on the lookout for another one, it is probably my favourite rod. 

Another fish came from this swim below where a large slack looked a perfect area where fish would be sheltering away from the main flow. After missing an unmissable bite !! I got the rig out a again and this time hooked in to a hard fighting river chub. 

Ok not the biggest admittedly but I wasn't complaining as I thought I'd struggle for bites on this 3.5 hour session. The best was yet to come though as the last swim I fished I couldn't believe my luck because a bite on the drop first cast I managed to catch 3 chub out of the same swim all in the space of 10 minutes.

I really didn't expect that !!!

The biggest was slightly under 3lb but all in decent nick and like I said considering the conditions to go away with 6 chub at the end of the session I was well happy. Those roach didn't show though sadly but to be honest they rarely show up, when they do it's usually a good'un !!!

I really do love sessions on small rivers especially when the weather is as nice as this. Ok the wind was chilly but that sun made up for it and as usual here I had the river to myself, well apart from the kingfishers and birds of prey 😎