The Tiny River Alne - 101st Chairborne's and Chronosynchronicity

It has been, one of those weeks where the news alone makes you want to retreat to a quiet riverbank with nothing but a loaf of bread, a box of worms and the faint hope that extraterrestrials might at least have the decency to show themselves before teatime. 

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor having his collar felt, UFO files being waved about like a raffle prize at a village fête, former presidents hinting that “they’re real” but apparently not in Area 51 honestly, if little green men did land, they’d probably take one look at us and reverse straight back out of the solar system muttering, “Nope. Not today.” And somewhere in all this cosmic kerfuffle I found myself thinking: yes, take me back to the 90s (fingers crossed), when the biggest mystery was why your maggots had all turned into casters overnight.

Still, while politicians rummage through filing cabinets marked “Definitely Not Aliens,” there are more pressing matters namely, a neglected 800 yards of the River Alne that I had somehow managed to ignore thanks to my cartographical incompetence. 

You see, I had been fishing what I thought was the entire stretch, only to discover—via a chance chinwag with Nic from Avon Angling that I had effectively been operating on half a tank. The point I believed to be “the end” was in fact the halfway mark. Eight hundred yards! That’s not a missed swim or two; that’s practically a small expedition. I’ve seen lesser oversights spark public inquiries.

Now, who doesn’t like exploring a new bit of river? Who doesn’t like roving a small, intimate, slightly moody watercourse that looks as though it was designed by someone with a fondness for bends and overhanging branches? Not I. I cannot sit behind motionless rods like a garden ornament, especially when it’s cold enough to make your tea freeze mid-sip. Ten minutes in a swim, no dithering, no existential debates just in, fish it properly, and if nothing obliges, move on with the brisk determination of a man late for pudding.

My tactics were as subtle as a brick but, in the right conditions, gloriously effective: liquidised bread in the feeder, a small piece of bread on the hook or a couple of worms from my industrious wormery. 

The worms, incidentally, seem to live a more structured and productive life than I do. They compost. They contribute. They don’t read maps incorrectly. I envy them.

The Alne has been up and down more often than a yo-yo in a wind tunnel. One minute it’s fining down beautifully after a flood, the next it’s back to looking like a vat of over-brewed tea. 

It’s enough to make the float-trotters sigh theatrically into their centrepins. 

But small rivers have a saving grace: when they begin to fine down, they reveal their secrets. You can see where the crease forms, where the steadier water tucks in under a far-bank bush, where a dace might sit like a silver coin waiting for a tip.

Ah yes, the dace. The Alne can throw up some clonking specimens when it’s coloured proper shoulders on them, not those apologetic slivers that look like they’ve skipped breakfast. There is something deeply satisfying about a big dace in turbulent water, all shimmer and indignation. 

They don’t so much bite as object. And in my more optimistic moments I allowed myself to picture a chub lurking in the wild stretch one of those broad-headed bruisers that picks up a feeder with the quiet authority of a headmaster confiscating contraband.

The new section felt wilder, less “towny,” as though it had shrugged off the background hum of humanity. Fewer dog walkers offering tactical advice. Fewer metal detectorists asking, “Caught anything?” with that hopeful tone suggesting they might accept one for dinner. Just the river, the trees, and me, stomping about like a mobile bread dispenser.

Roving in such conditions is not merely a tactic; it is a state of mind. You are hunter, gatherer, mildly confused naturalist. You peer into slacks and undercut banks as if expecting a chub to wink back at you. You convince yourself that the next swim always the next swim will produce that decisive pull round. And when it doesn’t, you mutter philosophical observations about water levels and atmospheric pressure, as though delivering a lecture rather than admitting you’ve just blanked again.

But there is hope on the horizon. The weather is due to turn milder next week, which in angling terms is akin to hearing that the buffet has been restocked. Warmer air, steadier levels, and the whispered promise of the Warwickshire Avon being described by an unlettered 'anonymous' blog reader, no less as “barbel soup.” Barbel soup! The very phrase causes the rod to twitch involuntarily. It conjures visions of powerful fish charging downstream, of quivering quivertips and clutches singing like overenthusiastic choirboys, or inebriated head-wand tappers on the snakebite.

And really, after a week of headlines about aliens, secret files, and the general wobbliness of the world, what could be more grounding than a proper bend in the rod? No conspiracy theories, no classified documents just a fish on the line and the honest, uncomplicated thump of life at the end of it.

So yes, let the governments release whatever they’re releasing. Let the skies reveal what they will. I shall be on a small river, marching from swim to swim with a bag of bread and a pocket full of worms, content in the knowledge that while the universe may be vast and mysterious, at least the Alne is only 800 yards longer than I thought. And this time, map in hand (not really), I intend to fish every last yard of it.

Now it wasn’t so much “fishing in the rain” as “standing in a mobile car wash with a rod.” The sort of weather that makes you question your life choices and your waterproofs in equal measure. At one point the rain was coming in horizontally, which is always impressive this far inland, and I briefly considered turning round to check for a sea behind me. Still, it was milder than the recent Siberian nonsense we’ve endured, so I told myself this was practically tropical. Monsoon chic. Very River Alne couture.

Access, as ever on this particular stretch of the River Alne, is not what you’d call “match friendly.” If you’re the sort of chap who travels with a seat box the size of a modest semi-detached and enough attachments to dock with the ISS, you’d have wept quietly at the first stile. This is more a venue for the minimalist, or the terminally stubborn. I opted for stubborn. A pleasant first swim winked at me crease, slack, all very postcard and the fish promptly vacated the parish. They were not in the slack. They were not in the crease. They were, I suspect, in conference elsewhere discussing my arrival.

The river was still hoofing through like it had somewhere important to be, but in these conditions at least you can read it. Big water simplifies things: the fish are where they can breathe without being relocated to Stratford. The next swim had “chub residence” written all over it deep, a tidy back eddy, a gentle slack, and enough cover to conceal a minor scandal. 

I wedged the rod on what I believe was barbed wire (health and safety need not apply) and awaited developments. One shy pluck became a proper melt-down and we were attached. A pleasingly argumentative scrap ensued, all head shakes and dour intent, before a two-pounder slid into the net looking like it had opinions about the whole affair.

Given the visibility somewhere between “pea soup” and “builder’s tea”—I wasn’t about to grumble. Up the stretch I trudged, interrogating likely spots like a damp detective. By the time the rain was doing its sideways trick again, I’d winkled out five chub in cracking nick. The best went 3lb 8oz, which on this bit of the Alne is a fish you nod respectfully at, and another three-pounder came from the same swim while the heavens were emptying buckets with malicious enthusiasm. 

No umbrella. Obviously. We’re not made of sugar, and besides, umbrellas are for people who don’t rest rods on agricultural fencing. So there it was: five solid, winter-toned chub from a river that looked like it wanted to be somewhere else entirely. I was soaked, mildly perforated, and grinning like a man who’s found treasure in a drainage ditch. 

A new stretch walked, a fishing fix administered, and the sort of day that reminds you why we do this in the first place. Jobs a good’un, as they say preferably while wringing out one’s sleeves and checking for livestock-related tetanus. Oh I forgot to mention bread did the business, not even a tap on worm bizarrely.