Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.11

The tourists were being shown round an Irish castle by an old retainer. They came eventually to a gigantic pike skull mounted on the wall.

'That thing there,' said the guide, 'is the skull of the Giant Pike of Ballymuckduffin, which used to swallow whole cows alive. Took six horses and twelve men to drag it from the water, so it did. And that pike, yer honours, was a hundred years old. Just think of that: one hundred years old!'

One of the visitors pointed to a much smaller pike skull mounted nearby.

'And what's that?" he asked.

"That, yer honour,' said the guide, 'that is the skull of the same pike when it was only twenty five.' 💣😀

Anyway to the syndicate section of the Warwickshire Avon for some chub fishing where 24 hours early I caught a lovely fish on the float. This time mind you rather than concentrate on one spot I'd feed some bread mash in 6 or 7 swims at the start of the session and then fish the swims with either leftover Christmas cheese or large pieces of bread on the light quivertip set-up.

The Avon is starting to clear and there is around 2 foot of visibility at the moment which is perfect for trotting, but the session yesterday showed that with the cormorants around maybe fishing the snags or cover might be worth a go.  

I'm a roving angler at heart if I'm honest even though I love float fishing but towards the end of the session with a change in wind direction handling wet bread in the cold, my fingers were certainly feeling the full force of winter.

Anyway I arrived at lovely looking river where the sunrise looked like the above picture for 5 minutes then it was gone as quickly as it arrived. I glad I made the effort to get up early mind you as I'd have missed it otherwise. 

The 2nd swim gave the only bite of the short session  and another nice Warwickshire Avon chub of 4lb and 2 ounces. It nearly did me in the dying reeds during the fight and the bite came so quick I didn't even have time to extend the landing net handle.

That came on the bleu d'auvergne which is probably my favorite French cheese out of those that I have tried, the chub had good taste. I got small fish nibbles in the other swims but a rather quiet morning I must admit, where overhead I counted 23 cormorants in two seperate groups during one of those quiet spells.