Warwickshire Avon - Saboteurs and Sagaciousness

Now there was a time when discovering where the barbel were hiding required proper reconnaissance. 

You might walk miles of riverbank, peer through bushes, speak to other anglers in hushed tones and, if you were particularly dedicated, actually go fishing and find out for yourself. Those were simpler times. 

Now, apparently, all you need is an internet connection and the ability to type “Warwickshire Avon barbel” into YouTube.

Within seconds, the picture of the swim, the state of the river, the size of the fish, the weather conditions, what bait was used, what rod was used, which tree was being sat under and, quite possibly, what the angler had for breakfast can be available to anyone with a phone and absolutely no intention of keeping anything secret.

The Americans spent billions developing spy satellites capable of photographing objects from hundreds of miles above the Earth. Meanwhile, the local bait peddlers and the users of the next best barbel bait have discovered that a bloke with a GoPro and a YouTube account is considerably cheaper.

There is no need for orbital reconnaissance, covert surveillance or some highly trained intelligence operative peering through a sophisticated satellite camera. Just sit at home with a cup of tea and watch Dave from Nuneaton catch three barbel from exactly the same tree stump.

TARGET IDENTIFIED.

It rather reminds me of the old fishing tradition of telling somebody where you caught a fish by saying, “Up there somewhere.”

That used to be considered a reasonably good security system.

Now the modern equivalent appears to be standing in the swim, filming yourself catching a succession of barbel, panning slowly across the river to reveal the exact tree opposite, showing the distinctive bush behind you, announcing the nearest car park and then finishing with, “Anyway, hope you enjoyed the video.”

Enjoyed it?

I've practically got the Ordnance Survey map out.

And naturally, once the video is online, the information doesn't exactly remain classified for long. Within a few hours the usual suspects have probably watched it repeatedly, paused it at strategic moments, zoomed in on the opposite bank and identified the swim using nothing more sophisticated than Google Earth and a worrying amount of spare time.

The bait peddlers must be rubbing their hands together.

Forget traditional advertising.

Just get somebody to catch a half decent barbel on camera with your bait and the location conveniently visible in the background especially when opposite the small night fishing syndicate is a club water. Suddenly the entire fishing population knows precisely where they need to be on Saturday morning, preferably arriving at 4.17am with enough bait to feed a small village.



The problem is you see, Dr Uy Hoang a 51-year-old statistician working at the University of Oxford has mapped so many watercourses especially here in the Midlands, you can literally be on the bank with a click of the mouse button.

Of course, there is nothing particularly wrong with sharing a fishing video. We all enjoy seeing someone catch a good fish, and a well-made film can be hugely entertaining. But there is a slight difference between “I caught a nice barbel on the Warwickshire Avon” and “Here is a twelve-minute, 4K, drone-assisted geographical survey of the exact swim, including satellite-style aerial footage and a helpful description of the nearest lay-by.” 

The latter is less fishing report and more National Security Briefing.

Somewhere, presumably, there is a poor satellite operator sitting in a control room wondering why the latest intelligence request isn't for troop movements in Eastern Europe but instead reads:

“Please obtain high-resolution imagery of the Warwickshire Avon between Stratford and Wellesbourne. Suspected concentration of large barbel. Possible involvement of pellets.”

Frankly, they needn't bother.

YouTube has already done it.

And if the Red Hot Garlic Boilie bait boys haven't found your syndicate yet they soon will, so sign them up at you peril.

No satellite required.

Anyway enough waffle, I found their hot peg anyway so it would be rude not to try it out I suppose. Good mate Nic from Avon Angling was with me as well and he was fishing just upstream to also try and winkle out a chub or barbel. For this short session I fancied trying some spam as I've not used it for a while and if the swim has been filled in with the same bait, maybe a change bait is the way to go. 

The evening had started with all the promise of a particularly optimistic fishing catalogue, the sort where everything is golden, the river is sparkling and the angler apparently knows exactly what he is doing. Nic was already hunkered down in a swim, while I was preparing for the serious business of fishing, which in my case mostly involved standing about looking purposeful and wondering where I had put the bait. 

Meanwhile the cows were milling around with absolutely no intention of complying with the Government’s dispersal order, although politically they were clearly aligned with Andy Pandy because there wasn’t an Animal Control Officer in sight.

Thankfully the bovine protestors kept themselves to themselves, although their mooing provided a sort of rural soundtrack that made the whole affair feel considerably more civilised than it actually was.

I wandered down to the poaching peg and immediately began visualising a personal-best barbel lying majestically in my landing net, which was obviously a sensible and entirely proportionate expectation given that I had only just arrived. The swim was ridiculously clear, so clear in fact that I could see the bottom right up to the cover, which is exactly what you want when fishing for barbel because they clearly enjoy being watched.

I trickled a little bait into the swim and slowly baited the hook, taking care to adopt the sort of concentration normally reserved for defusing explosives or assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions. 

A sizeable lump of Spam went onto the long hair because I wasn't there to catch chub and, having caught plenty of good barbel on luncheon meat before, I decided there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to change a winning formula. By this point my chest had taken on the unmistakable appearance of a pigeon and my name was apparently Philip Smythe-Smith, but if you cannot beat them then you might as well join them and hope nobody notices. (Waves to the opposite bank syndicate members ) 

The light faded remarkably quickly and, within about fifteen minutes of the bait going out, the first tentative indications began, consisting mainly of little pulls and plucks that suggested something in the swim had discovered dinner but wasn't prepared to commit to the relationship. 

This continued for around twenty minutes, during which I managed to experience every possible emotional state available to a fisherman without actually catching anything, before dusk finally arrived and the curfew began looming ominously. Then, completely out of the blue, the rod pulled round properly and for one glorious moment I thought the barbel of my dreams had finally decided to make an appearance.

I lifted the rod and could actually feel the bait being stripped from the rather enormous pellet stop, followed almost immediately by that horrible grating sensation transmitted directly through the line and into the pit of my stomach. 

Then everything went slack, leaving me holding a rod connected to absolutely nothing and wearing the facial expression of a man who has just discovered that his lottery ticket expired yesterday. I reeled in to find the hooklink severed cleanly in the middle, which immediately led me to conclude that a pike had grabbed it because blaming a pike is much more satisfying than admitting that a rock might have outsmarted me.

I am fairly convinced it was a pike, mainly because something very similar has happened to me before and because the alternative would mean spending the rest of the evening wondering whether I had somehow managed to lose a fish to geology. 

There was, however, no realistic time to set everything up again, and the barbel gods clearly weren't prepared to extend opening hours merely because I had finally got something interesting happening. So I packed up my wounded dignity and headed over to see Nic, who had sensibly avoided all this nonsense and was actually catching fish.

Nic had managed a chub, followed by a rather splendid bream that briefly impersonated a barbel with such conviction that even I was prepared to believe it for several seconds. It was, in fairness, exactly the sort of performance you want from a bream when there is an audience, although I suspect the fish was merely enjoying the opportunity to make another angler look foolish. I watched the proceedings with the quiet satisfaction of someone whose own session had just ended in a severed hooklink and therefore had absolutely nothing left to lose.

So the grand introduction to the mysterious poaching peg had ended rather differently from the heroic barbel adventure I had visualised on arrival, although in fairness the evening had delivered cows, Spam, a possible pike attack and a bream with theatrical ambitions. 

There is probably a lesson in all this, although I have yet to identify one that doesn't involve carrying more hooklinks, blaming pike and lowering my expectations considerably. Perhaps the real secret of keeping a good peg secret is simply to fish it badly, because after tonight nobody in their right mind would believe there was anything worth catching there anyway, I'll be back !!