Warwickshire Avon – Terrorists and Troglodytes

“We went every Sunday to visit Shakespeare’s house," "I was not impressed and I saw that they were a society different from ours and that they were a morally loose society.” “I got the impression that they were a loose people, and my age didn’t allow me to form a complete picture of life there.”

That’s just one extract from a load of documents released by the CIA recently to come from the nutter and riled by the West, 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden.

So apparently Stratford-Upon-Avon could have influenced his view of the world and led him to commit his life to jihad.

He found it “Decadent” apparently.

Decadent, Decadent !!!

My backside….

As someone that has lived in the area for some time now, can someone please point me to the dancing girls (Kaz bar excused), the gin palaces and the seedy massage parlours.

Fine a hostelry after midnight, you'll be lucky....

Heck, maybe it’s now time to give Stratford Uponavon a makeover, forget 400 years of Shakespeare and all what goes with it, I and many are a little bored of all that now, let’s have a town built on debauchery and Dirty Black Russians, that’s Vodka, coffee liqueur and coke for those that want to make one.

So here is an idea, apart from turning the butterfly museum in to a cannabis factory. Clear the area around the Bancroft Basin of its painted human statues, magicians and wiggly worm sellers and have a One o’clock Gun similar to Edinburgh castle.

Forgot the firing of a boggo canon though, we need more of a show. Maybe re-instate one the trebuchets at Stratford Armouries, build a huge replica of Bin Ladens head (spitting image stylee) stuck on a plinth of bottled moonshine and take some inspiration from David Cronenberg’s film Scanners and give his head a proper good curtain faller via a flaming canon ball.

BOOM !!!!

A little like the chillies used in this curry I made myself last night....

For this session post snowpocalypse which is about the most excitement Stratford has had in years, 6” inches of the white stuff at my gaff, a proper dumping like we have not seen before, so much came down we even managed to build a snow man, yes really, I was off to an area home to hermits. You see, here, despite the river being well up is an area of solitude, an area that even when the river is turbid and turbulent, sanctuary can be found.

I’ve caught all manner of fish in this area so it was a case of double dipping, so deadbaits for Pike and Zander and then on the other rod meat.

When I got to the river I couldn't believe how high it was, the colour too, more coloured than I thought. It was up and over the banks, the staging under water but yeah, cannot catch anything without a bait in the water.

2 hours with only a few pings and small pulls on the meat rod and nothing on the deadbait I decided to move to an area that has also been good to me in the past. This time after two hours though there was even less interest, hmmm not good, the influx of rain and salty slow melt must have put them off.

A big fat blank....

I'm having to unleash the cheese paste I made 4 years ago....needs must.

Warwickshire Avon – Bloodbaths’ and Borborology

Sadly I was the instigator and the main protagonist in a morning of mass murder, a hundred or so lobworms executed in timely fashion were put to good use. With a canapé of pre sacrificed krilled maggots and an amuse-bouche of predator liquid, this offering to the Perch Gods was for them to hopefully hand over a couple of old’uns for ultimate salvation of the remaining party.

With the river clear as it is though this butchered and maimed limb concoction can switch a baron swim in to a fish filled one. I didn’t have much time for this session either before having to return to the family shackles, so it was a matter of getting a few swims prepped with a dropper full, leaving for a while then laying a bait over the crime scene awaiting the forensics to turn up to cordoned off the swim with their yellow tape.

I needed a decent Perch for the bloggers challenge you see, and despite catching quite a few stripy’s up till now, none were worthy of note and to be honest would look a little out of place on the scoreboard where some decent specimens are being banked.

This area of the Warwickshire Avon is very much untapped for me, for others not so, which for predators in particular it can throw up some cracking fish.

The problem is livebaits are more choice for catching Perch but here the pike are in such numbers so suspend a bleak under a big float the schoolboy Jacks would bully the smaller species out the way so I felt a lobworm would be a little more selective.

I also wanted to give the deeper a go down here just to see what depth was around and to also see if I could find any holes or features where Zander could be hiding out where I’ve suspicions that if there were any here they could be good’uns and another in to dark session was in order to try and bank one.

As a fellow no longer blogging but one time blogger said to me once,

“There are some F’ing massive Perch to be had there mate”

For a profanity like that to be used, I can confirm they were big, I'd seen the pictures.

So for this few hour'er a simple link ledger set-up with a big lob over the slaughterhouse, what could go wrong.

Well to be honest, quite a bit....

It was cold, very cold for starters with the water temperature 5 degrees and clear skies, that can certainly put the fish off, so 4 swims fed, no bites from either it was the matter of searching around with the deeper for future sessions.

I found one area around 100ft wide which was a lot deeper than the rest, in-fact around the depth I usually find some decent Zander, 12ft and more seems to be the sweet spot and this was bang on the money. An hour here with a deadbait I got a few tentative enquires but nothing properly took it.

I'd maybe try and fish a live bait here but again the small fish were suspicious in their absence.

Not a wasted trip by all means, but a big fat blank....

Lower Itchen Fishery – Flimflam and Floozy’s

The Monday at work my mind was elsewhere, you see the working week was to be cut short and at the end of the week, I’d be fishing one of England’s premier chalk streams available on a day ticket.

Post concept alias surfaces I needed to get a lengthy report out for a client so the headphones were donned and some Psybient mixes stacked up, Luciano Vizentin’s Dance with the Wolves really gave the ear drums a work out as did the more laid back BLOND:ISH mix from the 2017 Burning Man Festival , the low frequencies particularly pleasing, the correct number of BPM's too. Heck I even stuck it out for a whole mix from Solomun from The Old Port in Ibiza.

Dance music really does concentrate one’s mind to keep it on track, the tinnitus just about averted. Memories flooding back to the end of my 10 years of partying, the canal club in Wolverhampton and Code in Brum, dancing on speakers, away with fairies, beats just how I like them.

The hours pass quickly, the crosses ticked….well, the feasibility boxes filled mostly amber and red.

The end in sight….

My last trip down to the Lower Itchen Fishery in Southampton I felt a little cheated, not only did I fail to beat my Grayling PB but I didn’t really catch anything of note. Ok, the fishing was as prolific as ever with huge quantities of fish that reside in some of the swims a sight to behold, but it just didn’t stir one’s loins like the first trip down did.

Certainly no Harry and Markle sparkle that’s for sure….

One of the feeder streams

It didn’t help I suppose that Simon’s life is often dictated by work, even when he is meant to be on holiday, so fishing related chat, down and back was often broken up with the Champion partaking in a conference call from afar with all the flimflam terminology and acronyms that goes with the business consulting territory that apparently he specialises in.

Waffle to the layman and heathen like me….

Luckily Danny was with me for this trip down and like me he had plans that he had intended to stick to, for me it was before lunch fish the the upper part of the stretch and concentrate on a couple of swims that have Grayling in abundance and then after some much needed sustenance of fried onion and Lashfords Pork finest, more salmonidae and anything that would come along.

Main bait for catching the manic wriggler, well a couple or three tins of Green Giant and a pint of red maggots. Now sweetcorn passes through a Grayling like it does me and thee, I assume it's a bait that is mistaken for salmon eggs maybe, but it certainly did the trick when I've been to the Itchen before, as it seemed to land the better stamp of fish over the maggot.

A worthless foodstuff maybe, but boy, does it work....

Eventually or if I got bored, with a couple or so hours before dusk, I'd head down to the deeper lower swims with glides and holes and fish a little differently.

So it was down with the sweetcorn and it was out with the Warburtons Blue.

The bread would be fished liquidised in a feeder with a nice folded piece of punched piece on the hook to try and attempt something special that this fishery holds. Roach, Dace, Chub, yeap, any of those would be most welcome as any caught of size could well rival or better my mediocre PB’s.

A sight tip was fitted as I planned to finish off in the weir pool in to dusk to end the session and retire to the pub for a bit of fodder and a post Itchen catch-up. Rod, well the ever faithful, TFG 1.2TC River and Stream that is probably my favourite rod out of my ever increasing arsenal.

I felt that I went on the rove far too early when I was really enjoying myself in a couple of the swims bagging up on Grayling. If I had stuck it out in those the bigger fish would eventually turn up and a PB beater would have been mine. I’d managed an best equaling 1lb 8oz fish which was nice but still quite a bit away from the fish that are said to frequent this picturesque chalk stream. I needed to give them a proper go this time and fish through the plebeians.

My trotting set-up couldn’t be simpler, rod, a 14ft Drennan Acolyte plus, centre-pin (JW Young Aerodex 2900) loaded with 4lb line, a large Righyni float (Grayling Society ) a couple of BB’s to get the bait down quick to hopefully the bigger fish and a Guru QM1 hook which I found to be brilliant for hook-ups and ease of removal.It's such a light set-up that despite chucking the float out countless times and letting the rod tip do the work it never feels tiresome.

They are bold biters these Grayling and I found the self cocking and weighted float to be ideal as the fish would often hook themselves without needing a strike.

Corn on the hook with caster nearing red maggots and corn as feed, little and often worked well last time….

Much planning I’m sure you’d agree….but it’s how I go about my sessions.

Well, enough of that, how did it go....?

Well a bit of a mixed big really, it was cold very cold and only 3 of us on the whole stretch, still plenty of fish were banked, grayling, trout and more trout, the biggest grayling went 1.6oz so the big ones didn't show for me despite giving them a good go. Enjoyable trotting through especially with the flow making a small fish in to a bigger one.

After lunch I decided to head down the coarse stretch but despite fishing bread only game fish were caught, I wouldn't say I was tired of trout as they give a good scrap but a decent chub, roach and dace would have been nice.

Danny who had been feeder fishing most of the day had a lovely fat chub at last knockings to end an overall and enjoyable day. Door to door in less that 2 hours so not a bad drive either.

The Salmon seemed a lot more active for this trip too, a couple of big'uns spotted in the margins and lots of existing from the water in many swims.