The Tiny River Alne - Rumgudgeonry and Roses

Funny how a team can go from fifty dreamers to over four hundred engineers, turning a sketch into the Polestar 5 a 900-horsepower aluminium bonded body GT monster going down the production line then poof the hatchet CEO decides it’s all a bit too ambitious and back to rebadged Volvos and Zeekrs we go. Last night’s farewell was a proper knees-up though, a final lap with the usual suspects before everyone drifts off to new pastures, I escaped a few months ago after taking voluntary redundancy but some were happy to stay to find out what came next, and sadly what came next was the announcement that the whole UK operation was shutting down at Christmas. 

I reacquainted myself with body weight amounts of Rum Bongo cocktails Malibu, Wray & Nephew, Appleton Estate and enough tropical fruit to qualify as one of your five-a-day. Close cousins to the Painkillers I first met sailing around the BVIs in a Lagoon 440 catamaran… and nearly as dangerous. 

I grabbed an Uber back from Brum at 2:00am at the exact moment the DJ should’ve taken a long, hard look at his life choices. Cotton Eye Joe. Cotton. Eye. Joe. At that hour. Honestly, no repetitive beats to be seen all night, a wedding disco on steroids .I was still mostly compos mentis, to be fair but then my liver is a seasoned veteran at this point. Proper war-torn. Dunk it in a cup of tea and it’d hold together better than a hobnob.

That was all well and good, however I woke up this morning with a head like wet cardboard, craving fresh air and forgiveness. But for a send-off to six very good years and some of the best work parties I’ve known it was worth every fuzzy minute.

Fresh air required !!!!

I still remember that dace. Twelve ounces of pure Alne perfection a proper bar of silver, glimmering in the net like it had just escaped being made into jewellery. 

For a brief, shimmering moment, I genuinely believed I’d cracked it. Me, the Dace Whisperer, the man with the magic touch, the chap who could pluck specimen fish from a river barely wider than the average driveway.

Of course, the river had other ideas.
It always does.
It’s the Alne. 

Now, anyone who’s fished the Alne knows it’s basically a trout stream desperately pretending to be a proper river, wearing its best “No really, I am running water!” hat. But it’s my local, and like all questionable relationships, I kept coming back. 

I knew every bend, every undercut, every spot where a chub might lurk, plotting domestic terrorism on my end tackle. It was practically mine seeing another angler was rarer than seeing Bigfoot piloting a UFO.

And then came the predators.

Not the elegant, nature-in-balance ones you see in BBC documentaries narrated by morally upright people with warm tones. No, these were the type that roll up uninvited, eat everything that isn’t nailed down, and treat your carefully nurtured stretch of river like an all-inclusive buffet.

Not just otters and herons, but now Cormorants !!!

On the Alne.

I mean, honestly. That’s like seeing a giraffe in a corner shop.

They stuck out like black hoodie wearing teenagers at a village fete dark, sulking, and clearly there to ruin someone’s day. Before long the bites dried up. Dace sightings became about as common as winning scratch cards. And after an entire season of soul-sapping blanking, even my stubbornness gave in. I gave up the syndicate ticket before it finished the job of crushing my spirit.

But anglers never really quit, do we? We just redirect the madness.

So I picked up a new club book after given the lowdown from @BuffaloSi, it was one of those impulse purchases that sits unread for months while you sulk about fish that don’t know how good you are. I’d dipped a toe at the start of the season, but the conditions were biblical: hot, bright, low, gin-clear, minnow riddled and entirely designed to amplify my failures. So I did what any responsible angler would do…

 …I ignored it and went home.

But now — NOW — the rivers have colour. The sort of perfect, turd hue that makes you believe anything is possible. Except catching barbel. Never barbel. But still it’s the sort of colour that puts a little swagger in your step and a lot of hope in your over-stuffed ruckbag.

And with the Christmas holidays approaching, spirits high, motivation semi-functional, and bladder capacity reduced by festive ale, I decided I’d better give the new stretch another seeing-to. A post-working from home roving session. Nothing too ambitious we know how those end but enough to scope out swims and see if any dace were willing to give me so much as a hint that I wasn’t wasting my life.

Enter: the bread feeder approach.
Simple. Pure. Classic.
Also the angling equivalent of turning up at a nightclub in trousers from M&S and hoping for the best.

Liquidised bread into the feeder. A thumbnail flake on the hook. Wander, cast, wander, cast, mutter something inspirational to yourself, repeat. Perfect for covering water, or for looking productive when you’re actually just faffing about hoping someone upstream has fed the fish already.

Now there comes a moment in every angler’s life when you realise you’ve finally lost the plot. For some it’s when they start talking to barbel as if they’re rescue dogs. For others it’s when they begin carrying more glugs, dips and potions than the average medieval apothecary. For me, blog readers, it was when I found myself at the kitchen table, eyed suspiciously by the wife, dripping geranium essential oil into a bag full of liquidised bread like a budget aromatherapist with a questionable sideline.

This all started, of course, with Fishflix. I blame them entirely. One minute you're innocently binge-watching Martin Bowler catching roach the size of dinner plates, the next thing you know he’s whispering sweet nothings about “geranium rose oil” turning fish heads like it’s Gordon Gino and Fred visit the Avon. Well, if it’s good enough for Bowler and a roach with an unfortunate appetite, then it’s good enough for me. Eight quid on eBay. Bargain. Or madness. Hard to tell these days.

So there I was, rocking up to the first swim on the River Alne, armed with my rose-scented liquidised bread for the feeder and smelling faintly like I’d spent the night locked in the ladies’ aisle of Boots. Cast into a slack bit of water by a snag, sat back, breathed in the perfume, contemplated my sanity… and bang nibbles. Actual, honest-to-God nibbles within five minutes. Then carnage. Chaos. Tip-tapping, rod-bending drama. My first fish: a chublet. But a chublet that absolutely reeked of success (and possibly geranium).

Now what I didn’t expect  what nobody expects  is to hit the Alne on one of its rare “Yes, alright then, have some fish” moods. Because as rivers go, the Alne is moodier than a teenager asked to empty a dishwasher. Normally I’m lucky if I get a single disgruntled tap that feels more like a leaf having second thoughts. But on this day? Every swim had that electric feel, that whisper of possibility, that quiver in the rod that makes you sit up straighter like a dog hearing a cheese wrapper open.

And the chub the gluttonous, greedy, “we’ve not fed since 1997” chub were absolutely having it. I lost count after ten. Ten! Me! On the Alne! Usually the Alne gives me one fish and a lecture on humility. But I was into fish after fish, like some kind of budget-range Matt Hayes with slightly worse hair and a suspicious floral odour.

The dace, of course, were nowhere to be seen. They didn’t stand a chance against the chub that were piling in like it was the early-bird buffet at a garden centre. The biggest went 3 lb 8 oz, which on most rivers doesn’t warrant a parade, but on the Alne? That’s practically a local celebrity. A fish worthy of a plaque. Perhaps even a small statue.

Was it the geranium oil? The mythical snake oil? The essence of “SAGA reader on date night”? Who knows. But I tell you what: when the angling stars align, when the river mood swings in your favour, and when your bait smells like an elderly lady called Maureen who says “Ooh that’s lovely” a lot sometimes, just sometimes, magic happens.

And magic it was. One of those sessions that reminds you why we lug tackle bags through mud, why we tolerate the odd blank that bruises the soul, and why we occasionally smell like we’ve been hugged by a florist.

The river gave. The chub gorged. And I left grinning like an idiot, smelling faintly of roses, and wondering if maybe just maybe I’m onto something.

Warwickshire Avon - Minnows and Meatloafs

Now it’s strange returning to a stretch of river that once felt like home. The kind of place where the banks used to buzz with anglers, gossip, and that one bloke who always claimed he “almost had a seventeen last week,” even though his landing net was drier than my humour. 

Now it feels more like walking through a forgotten chapter of a book no one remembers writing overgrown paths, quiet water, the faint smell of old bait tubs and broken dreams. Idyllic, really. The matches, still go on mind you, those keepnets not as full as they used to be !!.

Of course, the tragedy of 2023 still hangs over the Warwickshire Avon like a dodgy chip-shop curry. The “oxygen crash” or as I like to call it, The Great Fish Apocalypse That Everyone Talks About Except the People Who Should Probably Have Investigated It. 

Miles of dead fish, the press involved, and an “apparently” that does a lot of heavy lifting. Pike the size of retired greyhounds, barbel shaped like torpedoes, chub with expressions of eternal disappointment... all belly-up. Grim times. Even now, when the river gives you a nibble, you almost want to whisper, “thanks for sticking around.”

Still, restocking happened, and floods do what floods do shuffle fish around like drunken tourists trying to find their hotel at 2 a.m. Little by little, life returned. Even the minnows returned more accurately, they multiplied into a biblical plague of finned pickpockets.

Which brings us to today.

The river was bowling through like it had somewhere important to be, brown and foamy like a giant latte made by an angry barista. Perfect conditions for a barbel if you believe everything written in fishing folklore and the back pages of Angling Times between mattress adverts.

 Armed with a lump of spam the size of a couple of boxes of matches and groundbait so krill-infused it could probably summon a blue whale, I set up. The thermometer told me the water was 8.4°C warming nicely. A sign of hope. A sign of life. A sign that I should continue ignoring the mounting evidence that I’ve no idea what I’m doing.

What I hadn’t accounted for was the leaf debris. Oh, the debris. More debris than the leaf pile in my garden that's always staring at me, and that’s saying something because I’m still convinced there’s a tent in there under them or something. 

Leaves were hitting my line like angry fan mail. Even with the rod tip high enough to make the bloke in the ISS raise an eyebrow, I was recasting every fifteen minutes, a right royal pain in the backside. 

But the feeder landed with a satisfying thud each time like dropping a brick onto a wobble board. That’s how you know the bait’s fishing well. Or at least that’s what I tell myself to justify the mechanically separated meat outlay.

The spam came back every cast absolutely rinsed by minnows. Minnows everywhere. Millions of them. I’ve seen fewer people at a free beer festival. They must hold monthly council meetings discussing how best to strip my bait before an actual fish gets near it.

Two hours, not a chub pull. Not even one of those cheeky little taps that gives you false hope before turning out to be a drifting shoal of leaves shaped like disappointment. So I moved swims. Because that’s what proper anglers do when nothing is happening they relocate, re-strategize, and ultimately fail somewhere else.

The new swim lasted thirty minutes. The flow was faster, the debris was worse, and the line looked like it had been decorated for Christmas by someone with a personal vendetta against me. So back I went to the original swim. The one that had produced that double-figure barbel just weeks earlier. My “hero swim.” My “golden memory spot.” My “please work again because I’m emotionally invested in you now” swim.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The river looked bang on. Moody and atmospheric. A nice slick glide. A bait presented so well it should’ve come with a Michelin star. Yet the rod remained as lifeless as a pub garden in February.

And here’s the weird thing: I still loved it.

There’s something deeply satisfying about fishing in conditions that most right-thinking people would describe as “utterly pointless.” Something calming in the futile battle against nature, minnows, and the creeping suspicion that every barbel in Warwickshire has conspired against you personally.

Because that’s fishing, isn’t it?
Ninety percent stubbornness, five percent misplaced optimism, four percent spam, and one percent actual success. I packed up with cold hands, a muddy arse, and zero bites but a big stupid grin because challenging days on the river are still better than good days doing anything else.

Besides, the minnows need someone to feed them.

I’ll be back, where are all the other anglers ? answers on a postcard. 

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.44

The river greeted me like an old mate who’s borrowed twenty quid and still hasn’t paid it back familiar, slightly guilty looking, and a touch murkier than expected. After yesterday’s minor miracle of winkling out a few chub on cheesepaste (blessed be the stinky cube of dairy-based hope), I swaggered down to the syndicate stretch convinced absolutely convinced that I could replicate the magic. I even whispered to myself, “Lightning does strike twice, doesn’t it?” as though I was the lead character in some low-budget angling documentary with questionable narration.

But the fishing gods, much like the weather forecast, enjoy lying.

Negotiating the entrance track felt like starring in a budget remake of Ice Road Truckers, only in this version the road is made of sloppy Worcestershire mud and the truck is a slightly bewildered Suzuki Jimny, which I’m fairly sure weighs less than a Labrador with a healthy appetite. Still, up it climbed  a tiny automotive mountain goat with the determination of a toddler going for the last sausage roll at a birthday party. By the time I parked up behind the first swim, I was already congratulating myself on both the Jimny’s heroics and my questionable life choices.

Only then did I remember from the WhatsApp group chat : TRACK CLOSED UNTIL IT DRIES OUT. Marvellous. Typical. Exactly the sort of thing you want to discover after you’ve already slithered your way in like a penguin on a slip-n-slide. To be fair I lied, it was a doddle !!

But seeing as I was now effectively committed or possibly should be committed I decided it was a case of in for a penny, in for a soggy, mud-caked pound. The plan was simple, even elegant: bait a few likely chub haunts with stinky cheesepaste, wait for the tip to rattle, claim victory, go home smelling slightly worse than when I arrived.

A flawless strategy, I thought.

Except the first bite came from a minnow clearly experiencing an early life crisis. It inhaled my cheesepaste like it was auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent: Sword Swallowing Edition. A minnow! On cheesepaste! The river’s smallest resident had gambled big and, sadly for my pride, won. Still, the blank was technically avoided, even if the victory felt a bit like getting a round of applause for tying your shoelaces at age forty.

Down the stretch I trudged, disturbing a cormorant who gave me a look that suggested I was the one ruining its fishing. It flapped off like an indignant Victorian aunt, its day clearly ruined by my mere presence. I primed several swims with stealthy nuggets of cheesepaste and a little mashed bread the angling equivalent of throwing out free samples in the hope someone buys the full product.

Five swims, countless casts, two hundred and seventeen internal monologues about why I bother, and what did I get?

Nothing. Not a chub pull. Not a pluck. Not even the courtesy of a half-hearted nod from something small and uninterested. My bread was getting mullered by minnow, of course the aquatic equivalent of a late night kebab van: always busy, never what you actually want.

Yet and this is the sort of thing non-anglers simply will never grasp I still enjoyed myself. The frosts had revealed parts of the river I’ve not been able to access since approximately the Bronze Age. I discovered two swims that, when the river is lower and behaving itself, look like they could hold chub of suspicious girth. Proper ones. The kind that make you double-take, mutter “Oof, hello”, and wonder whether you need a bigger landing net.

And that’s the strange thing about fishing. Success isn’t measured solely by what you catch, but by the moments of promise, the gentle ridiculousness of the whole affair, and the sheer stubborn optimism that keeps you returning to the water’s edge when any sane person would stay inside and do something sensible… like hoovering, or taxes, or literally anything that doesn’t involve being up to your ankles in cold mud while debating whether a bird just judged you.

So while the chub were clearly off having a committee meeting elsewhere, ignoring me completely, the morning wasn’t wasted. Far from it. It was reconnaissance. It was fresh air. It was ridiculous, muddy, fishless, minnow-ridden joy.

On to the next one because someone has to give those chub a talking-to, and it might as well be me.

Warwickshire Avon - Rammish and Rankness

Now if you’ve ever wondered why cheesepaste is basically the winter equivalent of chub kryptonite, picture a cold, grey river where everything sensible is hiding and trying to conserve energy except the chub, which apparently didn’t get the memo and is still waddling around with the appetite of a teenager let loose at an all-you-can-eat buffet. 

While most creatures in winter are thinking deep, philosophical thoughts like, “I shall not move unless absolutely necessary,” the chub is out there cruising the currents like a fridge on fins, sniffing around for its next questionable snack. Cheesepaste works because it smells like a dairy explosion (in the best possible way). Even in icy water, that bold, unmistakable aroma travels straight into a chub’s brain like a flashing neon sign saying, “FREE FOOD, LIMITED TIME ONLY.” And despite whatever internal fish-logic they might have, the chub’s stomach always wins the argument. 

One minute it’s saying, “We don’t really need to eat today,” and the next it’s screaming, “IT’S CHEESE—TAKE IT, YOU FOOL!” By the time your carefully moulded glob of cheesepaste hits the riverbed, the chub is already mentally clearing space in its digestive system like someone unbuttoning their jeans after Christmas dinner.

The texture doesn’t hurt either. Cheesepaste is soft, squidgy, and reassuringly edible-feeling—nothing that screams “HOOK!” or “SUSPICIOUS HUMAN TRICKERY!” It’s basically the comfort food of the fish world. The fats and oils seep out gently, drifting downstream, whispering to any lurking chub, “Hey… psst… winter’s terrible… come emotional-eat your feelings.”

 And let’s be honest, chub have the kind of appetite that could impress a Labrador. They don’t nibble delicately or make polite decisions about portion sizes they hoover. So when that irresistible lump of cheesepaste rolls into view, the chub doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t negotiate. It just goes full vacuum-cleaner mode, because in its mind, winter survival is 10% instinct and 90% “if it fits, I eats.”

So really, that’s why cheesepaste shines in winter: it’s warm, it’s rich, it’s smelly, and to a hungry chub in January, it’s basically a Michelin-starred meal disguised as a fistful of dairy and breadcrumbs. Anyway I’d not been up this part of the Warwickshire Avon for a good while, and as soon as I stepped through the gate I was reminded why I’d missed it proper big chub country. 

Not your “that’ll do” three-pounders, but those thick-set, winter-ready bruisers that sulk under snags like they’re weighing up whether to eat your bait or just glare at you for disturbing them. With the working week mercifully ending at 12:30pm, I had a few golden hours for a roving session before the light slipped away and the frost started creeping back in.

A rather rude overnight temperature drop had iced everything into a crunchy misery, and as I trudged along the bank I couldn’t help thinking, “This is going to be tricky, isn’t it?” But tricky often means interesting, and interesting usually means chub so the plan was simple. 

 

Check out a handful of swims, trickle in a few paste nuggets to get the dinner bell chiming, and then give each spot a disciplined fifteen minutes with a lump of cheesepaste wrapped round the hook. No lounging about, no overthinking just cover water and let the river tell me what mood it’s in.

I know this stretch can produce fish that make you question the strength of your landing net handle. My PB chub stands at a rather pleasing 6lb 2oz, but the Warwickshire Avon these days feels like exactly the sort of river where personal bests quietly go to die. 

These fish are big, bold, and more than happy to loiter where the regulars introduce bait those steady trickles of crumb and pellet forming underwater dining rooms that the chub slip into with the swagger of customers who know the chef personally.

Every swim felt like it had a story. A slack beneath a leaning willow here, a crease pushing off a sunken tree there, each one looking like the kind of place a big old chub might sit and ponder the meaning of life or at least the meaning of cheese. 

The river had that cold, metallic green look to it, the kind that says, “If you’re not organised, you’re blanking.” Thankfully, I’d brought enough cheesepaste to supply a medium-sized pizzeria as I made a fresh batch, so morale remained high.

With each stop I would mould the paste round the size 6 hook, swung it carefully into the quietest part of the swim, and settled in. Fifteen minutes. Not sixteen. Not a hopeful seventeen. Just enough time for a curious slab-sided river monster to shuffle out of its lair and decide whether today was the day it fancied a dairy-based snack.

Whether I’d pick up a chub or two didn’t matter quite as much as the roaming itself the slow meander along a nice stretch, the crunch of bank frost underfoot, and the quiet feeling that any cast, absolutely any cast, could produce the fish that finally nudges that PB off the top spot. And truth be told, on a river like the Warwickshire Avon, that possibility is the real hook that keeps you coming back.

Anyway after all the planning, the session got off to a cracking start, even if I was still rubbing the CAD eyes and wondering whether the river gods were in a benevolent mood or the usual spiteful one. I’d just wandered past two anglers sat in what looked like textbook chub real estate proper slack water, overhanging branches, the whole brochure when I plonked myself in a swim that looked, frankly, like it needed a pep talk. Still, there was a snail-pace crease just off the fast water, a kind of aquatic conveyor belt leading straight out of a tree-affected riffle, and that was enough for me.

To my utter astonishment (and mild panic), the cheesepaste barely had time to introduce itself before the first chub walloped it. Then another on the very next cast. Sudden chaos, proper rod-hooping bedlam, the sort of action that makes you look around to check no one saw you grinning like an idiot. The better fish an old warrior of a 4-pounder gave me a scrap that suggested it’d done a bit of boxing on the side. Then, as chub often do when they’ve had their fun making you feel smug, the swim completely died on me.

So off I went for a rove. That’s when I found myself utterly preoccupied with the world’s fastest rattly bites so quick they could’ve been powered by caffeine. I swapped to a smaller hook and a bit of bread, but I still couldn’t connect. It felt like trying to text someone back while wearing oven gloves. Annoying, comedic, and slightly humbling.

Eventually I gave myself the customary kick up the backside and marched back to the job at hand. Five swims later I ended up right back where I started typical. At dusk, just as the sky turned that moody shade of “you’ve pushed your luck, mate,” a plucky 2-lber obliged. Lovely fish… followed immediately by the heavens opening and soaking me to the marrow on the trudge back to the car.

Still, an enjoyable few hours. No monster today but I’ll be back. The river owes me one, and I intend to collect.

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.43

Now there’s a very specific type of joy that hits a man square in the soul when he walks into the shared works loo and sees that deep celestial blue water staring back at him like the portal to a better dimension where people actually clean up after themselves; it’s a fleeting moment of hope before reality reminds you that somewhere in the building there lurks a grown adult who pees like a Jackson Pollock tribute act and flushes with the commitment of a man blowing out birthday candles.

As careful and courteous as I am hovering like a crane operator trying to land a pallet of Ming vases there are always those who treat the place like they still live with their mums, leaving behind the sort of aftermath that would have the UN sending in observers.

Anyway speaking of bodily evacuations, it put me in the mind to escape the office, syphon the python properly, and then head down to the syndicate stretch for an evening dabble to winkle out something with fins, dignity, and hopefully better house training.

I had a tub of lobworms from Willy Worms that had been glaring at me from the fridge like long, glistening noodles of guilt ever since the Teme trip, and frankly they needed a swim before they applied for asylum. Proper Canadian Night Crawlers, imported straight from the land of maple syrup, moose, and people who say “sorry” even when you walk into them.

I figured that whatever I’d been doing lately clearly wasn’t tickling the fancy of anything aquatic, so a change was in order: robin red groundbait, a handful of maggots in the feeder, and on the hook, a lobworm and a half as if presenting the fish with the worm equivalent of a king-size duvet.

Now, I’ve used lobworms successfully over the years, especially when dusk rolls in and everything takes on that magical, slightly spooky quiet that convinces you a personal best barbel is about to appearor a badger wearing a head torch. Something about a big juicy worm writhing in the current sends those subterranean Richter scales twitching.

Even Barbara the Barbel, who’s been playing hard to get ever since Sean blundered into her patch like a drunken wedding crasher, surely can’t resist a bait like that. Lobworms are basically the Almas caviar, Kobe beef, white truffles, and Matsutake mushrooms of the piscine world, except cheaper and stored next to the yoghurt in my fridge, much to the family’s ongoing disgust.

True, the river had been rising and falling like a drunk uncle on a pogo stick, and temperatures had dipped to the kind of level that make fish consider hibernation, religion, or migration, but as the old saying goes you can’t catch owt without something wet, smelly, and wriggling in the water.

 So off I toddled with hope in my heart, mud on my boots, and a bucket of Canadian immigrants who were about to discover that after a long cultural journey across the Atlantic, their final destination was a muddy Worcestershire riverbed where their job would be to impersonate luxury cuisine for creatures with the IQ of a bath sponge.

And honestly, as I trudged along the bank past the dead fox watching the river glisten under the last smudge of daylight, rod over my shoulder like some middle-aged angling Messiah.

Now I felt that wonderful, daft optimism only fishing can give you the belief that tonight might just be the night, that the stars would align, that Barbara (or other rod benders) would forgive me for past failures, that the worms would dance seductively enough, and that for once I might not sit there for three hours contemplating life, death, and why the bloke in cubicle three needs a full-time carer.

But that’s the magic of the river every cast is a tiny gamble, a silly little hope wrapped in groundbait and desperation, and as I lobbed that first wormy parcel into the nice slack, I grinned foolishly headed into the dusk, convinced that somewhere down there, some discerning fish in need of a late-night snack was already drifting over, sniffing like a Michelin inspector at a roadside burger van, ready to make my evening infinitely better than the state of the office toilets ever will.

The worms were getting a bit of attention straight away probably more than I ever get on a night out yet after a few hopeful plucks and half-hearted tugs, it took ages (and full-on darkness) before anything serious happened. Then bam! Out of nowhere the tip gives a sharp yank and then just keeps going like it’s late for an appointment.

I strike, I feel the classic head-nodding of a fish—finally!—and then… that’s where the joy ended. It popped off after a few seconds, Bugger !! I even let out the traditional angler’s cry of “OH COME ON!” to let the universe know I was displeased, then a full on grin and a chuckle to myself.

Thankfully, I’m pretty sure it was only a small chub, not one of the lurking monsters that swim here (I caught one 5lb 13oz back in October) and only bite when you’ve packed up and walked 20 yards away. And that was it. One bite. One lost fish. I carried on like an optimist with poor life choices and got absolutely nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. The fish had spoken, and they said, “Not today, mate.”

Thankfully after fishing it got a bit better, you see I love it when the wife says, “You can cook for yourself if you want when you get back,” because that’s basically my licence to unleash flavours she’d never willingly go near. After a fishless wander by the water, I fancied something with proper punch, so earlier at lunchtime I headed to the newly discovered oriental store near work an absolute Aladdin’s cave for anyone who likes chillies strong enough to remove wallpaper.

I grabbed a bag of prawns so big they looked like they’d once had gym memberships, plus a few mystery ingredients that smelled dangerously promising. Back home, I threw everything into a Panang curry that bubbled away like it was plotting something.

The result? A fiery, fragrant masterpiece that made my eyes water in the best possible way. The prawns were top notch too firm, sweet, and cheap enough that I briefly suspected smuggling. The wife poked her head in, sniffed, and said, “That’s… strong,” which is her polite code for “I’m not touching that, enjoy your self-inflicted suffering.”. Bliss. Oh and the water temp was 8.8 degrees BTW

Warwickshire Stour - Frostbound Flummery and Fanciful Foppery

There’s nothing quite like waking up to an overnight frost so thick it looks like your windscreen has been laminated in frozen milk full-fat, none of that semi-skimmed nonsense. I stood there, scraper in hand, attacking the ice on the Jimny with all the enthusiasm and finesse of a man chiselling at the Rosetta Stone using a spoon he stole from a motorway service station. As the shards of frost ricocheted off my face, I found myself pondering whether the great oracles of angling the Fishing Gods, the Weather App, and the Mrs. might, for once, be aligned in something other than their mutual disdain for my weekend plans.

And blow me down with a roach scale, they were. Because shining through that crisp, biting, nose-hair-snapping cold was the sort of sun that leans in, gives you a cheeky wink, and whispers, “Go on lad… go fishing… the chores can wait, the odds are against you, and let’s face it, you were never going to grout that bathroom anyway.”

After consulting with the Oracle the evening before (you know who you are, dispenser of cryptic advice and suspicious confidence), I set off to the diminutive Warwickshire Stour the muddy little underdog of a river that looks, at first glance, like it ought to hold nothing bigger than a confused stickleback with low self-esteem and perhaps a midlife crisis. 

Its colour can best be described as “eau de farm runoff,” and if you scoop a handful up, it smells faintly of cow gossip and the distant echo of a tractor that hasn’t been serviced since 1987.

But those who know the Stour proper those who’ve crouched on its slippery banks, dropped their phone in to it, with £40 at the bask of the case, fallen into its unsuspecting holes, or been mugged by a surprised moorhen understand the truth: beneath that suspiciously green surface lurk chub that fight like they’ve been raised on black coffee, creatine, and daily screenings of Rocky II. 

And then there are the roach. Oh, the roach. plump, smug creatures of such girth that rumours circulate of them entering local Strongman competitions under assumed names. There’s even talk of a 3lb 2oz roach who once flipped a tractor tyre, though that may have been exaggerated by at least three pints and a packet of Scampi Fries.

Now, the Stour isn’t just any tributary. Oh no. It’s the river that gave Shipston-on-Stour its name though presumably after rejecting several alternatives like Shipston-On-Boggy-Trickle or Shipston-On-That-Drain-Behind-Tesco. 

Rising in Oxfordshire before slinking through Warwickshire toward the Avon, the Stour enjoys long walks in the countryside, getting flooded at inappropriate times, and being blamed for the agricultural sins of mankind. Classic British river behaviour, really.

Arriving at the bank with a windscreen finally visible after ten minutes of cardio I found the river much lower than expected. 

The Stour is usually a lovely shade of pastoral pea-soup, but today it looked like it had been on the kale smoothies again. Still, the colour was right. 

The smell was right. And above all, the sense of “big roach maybe, possibly, please please let it happen today” hung in the air like the breath cloud of a man who’s spent far too long daydreaming of mythical 2-lbers.

Speaking of which, yes, I did once lose a monster on another stretch. A fish so wide I still get phantom tugs in the night thinking about it. 

A fish that rose, winked at me, flexed its pecs, and then parted company with my hook like it had better places to be. Therapy may be required.

Tactics today were classic winter simplicity: a thumbnail of bread on a size 12, liquidised bread in the feeder, and my trusty TFG River & Stream rod with a 0.5oz glass tip the kind of setup that makes you feel like a proper roving river ninja rather than a grown man stumbling about in waders trying not to fall in.

Roving is my favourite way to fish these skinny rivers. Cast, wait ten minutes, catch or swear, move on. It’s a sort of aquatic speed-dating. You power through more swims than a salmon with impatience issues, you stay warm, and your mind clears of all life’s rubbish. It’s like meditation, except instead of chanting “om,” you mutter “that looked like a bite… didn’t it?”

And then—BOOM. First swim. Ten minutes in. The quivertip went from calm and steady to “ABSOLUTELY NOT, MATE” as if the chub had just heard last orders at the pub. 

A proper clattering bite. I struck, the rod hooped over, and the Stour delivered its first hard-fighting chub of the morning. Not huge, but scrappy, bullish, and determined like a drunk terrier defending a pork pie.

Downstream I trudged, enjoying the rare pleasure of fingers that were only mostly numb. Swim two offered another lightning bite and another chub… except this one fought like a pub bouncer who’d recently taken a correspondence course in Advanced Dirty Tricks. 

It ploughed into reeds, wrapped itself around submerged foliage, and somehow attempted both a kidney punch and a kick in the nuts. The thing escaped in the end, leaving me questioning whether it had also stolen my wallet.

But the chub were properly on it today. Almost every swim produced action. In one shady little glide and raft, a fish grabbed the bread almost on the drop and shot off upstream like it had just remembered it’d left the oven on. 

Another quick strike another hooked fish another ping as the hook popped out. At this point I started wondering whether these chub had unionised and voted for coordinated resistance.

Still, hope springs eternal in the quivering heart of an angler, and sure enough I dropped back in and had another bite within minutes. 

That one stayed on, probably out of sheer politeness. Eventually, the morning tally reached seven chub, all on bread, with the best going maybe 3½lb. Not exactly a British record, but on light gear on a frosty morning, it felt like battling river-reared prizefighters.

No roach, sadly. Not even a modest one for morale and maggots I tried were hovered up by minnows, but when you’ve had a morning like that sunshine, fish, cold air that wakes your soul up instead of freezing it solid you walk back to the car with a grin that suggests you know something the rest of the world doesn’t.

And then, the Sunday continued its ascent into a proper good'un.

The rabble and I marched proudly into Stratford-upon-Avon’s busy Christmas market like a troop of victors returning from battle. A pub stop was of course mandatory purely medicinal to warm the bones with a winter ale that tasted like Santa’s beard had been steeped in malt.

Then home for a roast pork dinner with all the trimmings, followed by Formula 1, YouTube binge watching and the glorious feeling of having wrung every last drop of joy from a crisp winter Sunday. One of those rare days you wish you could bottle, label as “For Emergency Use Only,” and drink whenever the world turns moody.

A frost, a river, some chub, a pub, and a roast.

If that’s not the recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is.

Warwickshire Avon - Maggotry and Muddlecrust

Weekends, for those of us chained to desks like Victorian typists, are not a luxury but a biological necessity. Some people recharge by doing yoga or buying candles that smell like Scandinavian forests; I, however, achieve inner peace only through trotting a river with a pint of maggots and a level of obsession that would concern most medical professionals. 

So, armed with two pints from Martyn the Maggot Peddler a man whose entire personality could be accurately summarised as “smells faintly of ammonia” I was already riding high on the anticipation of bent rods and bruised knuckles. In my mind, it was a simple plan: go to river, unleash maggots, let destiny unfold. Destiny, as ever, had its own plans.

The river had apparently been threatened with a dramatic rise. A biblical surge. Possibly a cameo by Moses. Instead, when I arrived, it sat there completely unfazed, wearing a quiet olive hue as if to say, “Rise? Me? I don’t get out of bed for less than three feet, mate.” Nic from Avon Angling had been messaging me earlier with the feverish excitement of a man who had just discovered unlimited chub in the afterlife.

 “They’re having it BIG TIME!” he said. “Get down here NOW. Quit your job. Sell the house. Don’t worry about the dog (If I had one that is).” He even offered me his swim, which in angling terms is like offering someone your firstborn.

But fate intervened, and instead of dancing waders-first into a chub frenzy, I found myself trapped in a Virtual Reality meeting, guiding a collection of confused colleagues through a digital interior that looked like a cross between all manner of benchmarks and a parallel nightmare dimension. Nothing like listening to someone insist that “the floor keeps moving” while you try to concentrate on maggots waiting for you in the fridge.

Naturally, by the time I reached the river, the once-mythical chub gully Nic had raved about where he’d caught so many fish the previous day he could’ve opened a chub-only aquarium was now as clear as a freshly polished wine glass. I could practically see the riverbed sighing. 

Still, rain began drizzling in that persistent British way, the kind that nudges you gently but relentlessly like an overly chatty aunt at Christmas. So I set up, trotted the float downstream, hoped for the best, and tried to ignore the voice in my head whispering, “You could’ve stayed home and crumpets.”

Finally, after what felt like thirty-seven years, the float slid under. I struck with the enthusiasm of a man trying to swat away the entire month of February, and suddenly glory be there it was: a chub. And a pristine one too, the sort of fish that looks like it exfoliates regularly and moisturises with river minerals. 

My keepnet, which had not seen daylight since the Obama administration, was dusted off and ceremoniously deployed. I allowed myself a moment of pure, unfiltered optimism. “This is it,” I whispered. “This is where the session turns legendary.”

 It did not turn legendary.

Instead, it turned into a full hour of absolutely nothing. No bites, no taps, not even a rogue leaf hitting the line. It was like the river had decided that giving me one fish was enough charity for the day. 

So I did what any sensible angler does: I messaged Nic again, hoping for a dose of remote river guidance. He suggested moving downstream, like some sort of mystical chub whisperer. Off I trudged.

Two anglers were already stationed on the better swim, radiating the smugness of men who had arrived ten minutes earlier and therefore rightfully owned the universe. 

So I slipped into the next available spot and commenced what I like to think of as The Second Wave of Maggot Diplomacy. After another missed bite a good half and hour in, a theme of the day I finally connected again, right at the tail end of the trot where the water shallowed into a perfect ambush zone. 

A small chub rolled into the net. Then another. Then another. Then yet another. Four chub in quick succession! A burst of joy! A ripple of hope! A brief and fleeting sense that life had meaning!

And then the sun came out directly in front of me like an aggressive lighthouse, hitting my eyes at precisely the angle that would render me partially blind. 

As I squinted into the glare, the weather decided very helpfully to reintroduce rain into the equation, this time with more enthusiasm. 

Not drizzle. Not mist. No, this was sideways, face-slapping rain, the kind that seems personally offended by your presence. I was essentially being water-boarded by the sky while trying to watch a float I could no longer physically see.

At that point, the universe had made its position clear.

I packed up, damp, dazzled, smelling faintly of maggots and covered in dust, but still stubbornly pleased with myself. 

On the way back to the car, I wandered past an allotment and helped myself to some beetroot, because nothing says “true angler” like walking away from the river clutching stolen root vegetables like a Victorian vagabond.

Was it a brilliant session? No. Was it a perfect session? Absolutely not. Did I catch enough fish to justify the rain, the blindness, the existential monologue, and the maggot-related expenses? Honestly… probably? But that’s the thing about fishing: even the most middling day on the bank beats the best day anywhere else. Because every trot holds a spark of hope. Every submerged float makes your heart race. And every stolen beetroot tastes like victory.