Piscatorial Quagswagging

...the diary of a specialist angler in around the Warwickshire Avon and its tributaries.

Sunday, 26 January 2025

Warwickshire Avon - Moon Boots and Monopolylogues

 A chilly morning where I was scraping off the frost from the windscreen in order to go fishing, you do wonder especially when I left a rather cozy bed. But there was fish to catch and I fancied a go at trotting at one of the favourite sections of the Warwickshire Avon.  

The skies were clear overnight and the sun was going to shine most of the day and the skies were going to be blue. Perfect for fishing, NOT but trotting bread and feeding mash can get those cautious chub feeding from a static bait would often be ignored. 

Now with the temperature around freezing these are not ideal conditions to be handling wet bread. Maggots would be the better option on that respect but the river looked a perfect colour for bread fishing, where I'd feed some mash for a while than trot that float down to try and pick up a chub or two.

There is something very therapeutic about trotting, it's good for the mind, you literally don't think about anything apart from the task in hand. Now the first swim over the years has been a favorite of mine but the willow found itself cutback, by the phantom branch cutter, who also decided to take his pastime under the cover of darkness to other trees and bushes that would hinder a canoe for example. 



The tree and cover is now a shadow of its former self but the chub do seem to like it here still but then as you get to the tail end of the swim there is also plenty of cover, for the fish to tuck themselves out of plain slight.

The problem is after hooking the first first chub at the very end of the swim where it narrows you really have to be on the fish straight away and bully them away from danger, because like me if you are not on the ball you will lose the fish as quickly as you can say, Oh FFS !!.


They are not stupid chub, they literally know every inch of the river and its escape routes and after losing that fish after another half an hour without a bite, I decided to go on the move to another swim that looked perfect for trotting. No matter the weather and the level of the river they do tend to hang around here where within ten minutes I had a nice chub in the net.

There is something very satisfying after seeing the stick float shoot under the surface you lift in to a solid fish that is plodding around intermingled with some chub headshaking. Using light tackle this is where the 15ft rod comes into play with it down most of the work to combat its lunges. 


I managed three from that swim which was nice where they ranged from 2 to 4lb so a very satisfying morning in my book. I had a curfew as always but with an hour left I decided to try a fruitless swim before heading back to the swim I started in. Not an easy task because the mud really is claggy at the minute and it feels like you are wearing moon boots, they weigh a ton !!

I hooked and lost two fish quite quickly where after feeling the resistance they just came off 🙈, all very bizarre. I stuck with it mind you and managed another two pounder. 


The best was this one mind you from the previous swim because the session seems to come to a close much faster that I thought it would. It motors by when you are enjoying yourself because the sun was rather nice I must admit. That winter sun that warms everything up rather quickly and it didn't seem like it was still just hovering around freezing, where much of the ground outside of the sun's rays were still covered in frost. 

The glycerine I applied to the tiny rod rings did seem to be doing it job because only a couple of rod dunkings were required for this session in the cold, previously it's been a nightmare if I'm honest. So an enjoyable session despite its duration. I need to do more of this especially when the conditions dictate it.  

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