Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.39

Ah, yes. Monday. Approaching not with dignity or grace but with the subtlety of a Northern pike detonating into a shoal of roach. The Big 5–3, looming like a barbel bivvied under a snag—patient, inevitable, and smelling faintly of halibut pellet and mid-life crisis. Fifty-flipping-three. One foot in the grave, the other still trying to perfect a Wallis cast without looking like I’m conducting a small orchestra of invisible bees.  

People say I don't look my age, of course they lie, but I appreciate the effort. I maintain the sprightly demeanour of a man in his late forties on a good physio day, provided the ibuprofen has kicked in and the knee brace is on the correct leg. Elasticity? More like well-loved bankstick tubing: perished, cracking, yet refusing to give up through sheer bloody-mindedness.

And sixty—SIXTY!—is out there beyond the marginal lilies, squinting through bifocals and polishing its orthopedic slippers like a retired SAS sergeant tending to his ceremonial dagger. 

I can almost hear it wheezing, chuckling, sharpening its scythe on the back of my last functional lumbar vertebra. 

Time, that slippery devil, is racing past faster than a spooked chub on the gin-clear Warwickshire Avon, the kind of fish that looks at you, judges your life choices, and then bolts off like it’s late for a Zoom call with its therapist.

The Mrs God bless her for tolerating my collection of rods, reels, and landing nets that cost more than her wedding shoes (a fact she reminds me of seasonally like the renewal date on a rod licence)—had a scheme. Thinking, no doubt, “Let’s see if his arteries can handle something that would make a Roman senator wince,” (We have recently renewed our life insurance !!) she whisked me off to a Brazilian Rodizio in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Because nothing screams "celebrating your continued survival" like testing whether your cardiovascular system can endure sword-wielding waiters slinging protein like medieval siege engineers launching cattle over castle walls.

Meanwhile young Sam now a towering beanpole of teenage non-fishing rebellion stayed home to look after big brother Ben. 

A rare treat: to trust your offspring not to burn the house down, adopt a goat, or order industrial-scale pizza deliveries. With no support network worth mentioning, it's an odd sort of luxury to have a kid mature faster than your cholesterol levels. 

And oh, what a spectacle. The passadores essentially churrasco-trained meat ninjas strode about with skewers so imposing I half-expected the bard himself to rise from his grave and ask whether we were rehearsing Macbeth or an enthusiastic re-enactment of Gladiator. 

At one point, I swear one of them sized me up like a hog roast candidate. If the green card on the table flipped the wrong way, I might’ve ended up rotating over charcoal while tourists from Birmingham applauded politely and asked whether I came with chimichurri.

Chicken hearts arrived by the dozen Coração de Frango, which in Portuguese either means “delicious delicacy of cultural significance” or “procedure your GP recommends avoiding after 50.” I devoured them with the enthusiasm of a carp that’s just discovered someone spilt a bucket of Dynamite Marine Halibut boilies in the margins. 

Bife de Alho flowed past like long-lost relatives at a wake each slice a garlicky whisper saying, “You lived another year. Reckon you can handle another?” A man at the next table was openly sweating meat grease like a bacon candle. His wife looked like she had already drafted the eulogy.

Somewhere between the ninth cut of sirloin and what may have been a small llama disguised as beef “special cut,” my body began issuing gentle warnings. 

First a polite nudge: “Steady, lad.” Then, moments later, an urgent communiqué from the Department of Internal Affairs: “We didn’t sign off on this mission. Stop or we’re pulling the plug.” I powered on anyway, because pride is a terrible helmsman and also there was caramelised pineapple and frankly I fear no man and certainly no tropical fruit.

I reached a personal plateau of protein intake that could only be described as prehistoric caveman meets Tom Stoltman preparing for a WSM tournament. 

Then came the meat sweats. Oh yes, those glorious humid trousers of perspiration, clinging like a wet wader after you step in slightly wrong. 

I lay down at home staring at the ceiling, belly like a python post-gazelle, and in that moment of culinary delirium and self-reflection, I Googled Mounjaro. 

Not because I need it heaven forbid  but more in a “might-need-it-in-2027-as-a-backup-plan” kind of way. Future-proofing is important at my age, especially when your metabolism is basically a retired greyhound.

In this cost of living crisis those small wins, or in this case BIG wins need to be grasped with both arms, make hay whilst the sun shines and we both certainly did I can tell you that. 

Anyway to the fishing if you are still awake !! in an act of nostalgia or masochism I revisited an old blog post, (this is number 1834 👀 btw ) (which frankly feels like the age my spine believes it is), chronicling a COVID-era syndicate adventure where poachers roamed with all the subtlety of Newcastle clubbing ladies at a kebab van after midnight. 

I had landed a respectable 12lb 6oz pike PB at the time back when the world was mad, the rivers quieter, and my knees slightly less creaky. Since then, I've bettered that PB both river and canal side, with a canal pike over 17lbs that looked like it wanted to claim council tax benefits and register as a local resident.

I don't target pike much these days, largely because they look like a Victorian doctor designed them after seeing a crocodile once in a sketchbook.  

But when you do bank a good ‘un, there’s awe. A prehistoric torpedo designed for pure murder that swims around the Midlands silently plotting mayhem. Beautiful in a “don’t-put-your-fingers-there-Mick-you-pillock” sort of way.

Anyway, fishing wasn't really about pike today nor even Zander, those nocturnal teethy goblins of the cut. The farmer finally removed the electric fence to contain the sheep, meaning access to more swims along the syndicate stretch, and crucially I could now drive right behind the peg instead of lugging a hedge cutter like some geriatric lumberjack cosplay.

Yes, I have grown lazy in my golden-fishing-years era. Once I'd stride along riverbanks like a younger man possessed now I see a walk longer than a Tesco Express car park and internally whimper. 

(I'm still maintaining 10k steps on average a day you will be please to know) The hedge cutter alone weighs as much as my resolve did before discovering LSD in my twenties. 

But needs must, and if maintaining the swims means I get first dibs at the good ones, then so be it. The river gods reward effort allegedly. Though they mostly reward people who own stealthy bait boats and suspiciously expensive sunglasses.

There’s a moment, somewhere between swinging a hedge timmer like a medieval turnip farmer and realising you’ve just stepped in something that definitely wasn’t mud, when a man questions his life decisions. I’d set off for the river with hope in my chest and breakfast pastries in the glovebox, convinced that today yes today! I would outwit a pike and maybe even look competent doing it. Fast-forward half an hour and I was locked in mortal combat with autumn nettles, swearing with the gusto of a pirate who’s stubbed his toe on his own treasure chest.

I hacked, trimmed and generally vandalised the riverside vegetation until the bank looked like someone had attempted landscape gardening with the emotional restraint of a toddler on a Haribo overdose. Sweat poured, ambition radiated, and at one point the brambles and I were so entwined we may as well have been engaged. But, dear reader, swims were cleared. Nature defeated. My honour only mildly compromised. A couple of heroic dips in the river sorted the sweat situation and I emerged ready — nay, ordained — for piscatorial victory.

 

Rods out. Float poised in that perfect way that suggests something might, at any moment, explode into a dramatic spray of water and primal triumph. The river glistened like polished silver, dragonflies danced in the morning sun, and my anticipation crackled like the first gulp of a cold pint after a week of pretending salad is a satisfying lunch. I could practically hear the David Attenborough narration warming up.

So the masterplan: four or five swims, hour in each, find a pike, land said pike, grin smugly for blog readers and imaginary documentary crew. First swim, normally as reliable as the bloke in the pub who always “knows a shortcut.” Nothing. Not a nudge, not a rattle, not even a pike popping up to laugh at me. Fine. Onto the next roving mode activated, strides purposeful, like a man who definitely knows what he’s doing and not one who forgot which pocket he put his forceps in.

Second stretch of river again, splendid nothingness. Fishless silence, punctuated only by the gentle rustling of reeds and the slow deflation of my ego. I tried sink-and-draw with the smelt, a deadly method according to every fishing article written in the last two decades and also every bloke with a YouTube channel and a beard. I twitched that smelt like I was presenting it at the Royal Ballet. Nothing followed. Not even a curious roach pretending to care.

To the deeper water then, where big pike theoretically lurk like those grumpy nightclub bouncers from Coventry's Fatty Arbuckle's back in the day. I chucked a lure about with all the finesse of a drunk penguin. Wind picked up, lure rod began behaving like it was possessed by the spirit of a disgruntled washing line, and very quickly “dedicated lure angler” became “man giving up before he throws something expensive into the reeds out of spite.”

 Deadbaits back out. Prayers whispered. Offerings made to the fish gods that probably violated several religious guidelines. The river responded with all the enthusiasm of a teenager asked to unload the dishwasher. By this point, the only thing taking interest in my baits was a lone leaf, which drifted past with a kind of pitying vibe, like even the foliage had given up hope.

Hours passed. My optimism slowly dissolved, much like my rear end’s feeling in that ridiculous folding chair that looks sporty but has all the ergonomic qualities of an anvil. In the end, the only thing I hooked all day was a clump of reeds the size of a Labradoodle and a philosophical crisis about why I don’t play golf instead though then I remember golf involves trousers.

And so I trudged home, smelling faintly of sea fish, plant sap, and desperation, self-esteem slightly bruised but not fully annihilated. Because that’s fishing: endless hope, frequent humiliation, and just enough stubbornness to do it all again next weekend. Besides the river owes me now. I’ve filed an emotional complaint. Next time, I want action. And if not action, at least a pike swimming by so I can swear at it with purpose.

On to the next one !!