Warwickshire Avon - Skulduggery and Shenanigans

It started, as most of my great angling revelations do, not with the river, nor the tackle box, but the bait fridge. You know the one that old, slightly humming relic in the corner of the garage that smells faintly of a decomposing haddock and broken dreams. A place where forgotten bait tubs go to die.

I’d opened it in search of a pint of maggots, or at least something that had once been maggots before metamorphosing into a new species of garage-dwelling horror. Instead, tucked behind a tub of ancient custard powder (the colour of damp wallpaper), I found them: Sonubaits Cheesy Garlic Oozing Dumbells.

Now, I’ll be honest I don’t even remember buying them. Maybe they were a gift from the ghost of a past fishing season, maybe they multiplied in there like Gremlins. All I know is, they had survived several ice ages, the rise and fall of three governments, and still looked good enough to eat. Well, almost.

Naturally, I did the only sensible thing: dropped one into a glass of water to see if it still “oozed.” To my amazement, it actually did little plumes of cheesy garlic mist billowing out like a low-budget special effect from Ghostbusters 2. If I’d had a smoke machine, I’d have called it art and entered it in the local village fete.

Anyway, having established that the dumbells were still capable of some level of aquatic theatre, I thought: why not? The chub on the Warwickshire Avon have been giving me the cold shoulder recently, and frankly, I was running out of ideas. A bit of culinary roulette might be just the ticket.

Now, before we get to the fishing, I should mention a few weeks ago I’d snapped a rather fetching photo of a rainbow over the fields. I’d captioned it, “Was there gold at the end of the rainbow?” Of course, the answer, according to Irish folklore, is no. The leprechauns have stitched us all up you can never reach the end of the thing because, scientifically speaking, a rainbow is an optical illusion.

Still, as I stood by the Avon that afternoon, the water low and gin-clear, I thought the saying rather apt. Chub, like leprechauns, are elusive creatures. They toy with you, tease you with plucks and taps, and just when you think you’ve struck gold — ping! — you’re left staring at a limp line and a suspiciously smug-looking duck. 

The river looked as moody as a teenager denied Wi-Fi. Crystal clear, low, and slow the sort of conditions that make you wonder why you didn’t just stay home and mow the lawn. But hope, as they say, is the last thing to die. 

I plonked myself down, inhaled the familiar cocktail of damp earth and cow muck, and lobbed out a dumbell on a hair rig that looked about as trustworthy as a politician’s manifesto.

I gave it twenty minutes of nothingness  not even a tremble before the tip whacked over like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. The chub had clearly decided to inhale the bait first and think about it later. 

A brief splash, a flash of silver, and a fish was in the net before I’d even had time to question whether the dumbell was technically classified as radioactive.

Not a monster maybe a couple of pounds if it had been holding its breath but enough to stretch my hair rig to something resembling a shoelace. 

I considered tying a new one, but dusk was closing in faster than a pub landlord at last orders. Time for improvisation.

Out came the Korum Mega Bands, those elastic miracles that promise salvation to lazy anglers everywhere. 

Two 12mm dumbells fit snugly — like a pair of bowling balls in a bra and before long, I was fishing again. Quick, simple, and only mildly dangerous to my dignity. The light faded, the bats came out for their nightly acrobatics, and I sat back to enjoy that magical moment between daylight and night, where every splash sounds like a monster and every gust of wind smells faintly of potential.

It didn’t take long. A little tremor on the tip, then another. The sort of delicate tickle that says, “Hello, I’m a chub, and I’m thinking about it.” A few minutes later, the tip lunged round and stayed there. No subtlety. No hesitation. Proper thump.

This one had a bit of attitude. It dived, it sulked, it tried to burrow under my feet like it was digging a tunnel to Narnia. After a spirited tussle, I netted a proper chunk not a record breaker, but a healthy, solid 4lb chub with an expression that said, “You may have won this round, human, but I’ll be back.”

Mission accomplished.