Warwickshire Avon - Gravers and Grandiloquence's

Well, chaps, the news has finally filtered down to the bankside, and it’s fair to say it’s left a bitter taste in the mouth. Sharper than any hop, that's for sure. They’re shutting down Marston's. The historic cathedral of brewing in Burton-upon-Trent is to be boarded up by the summer of '27. Out with the Union sets, in with the corporate spreadsheet.

Now, you might be sitting there, scratching your head, wondering what a boardroom decision by Carlsberg has to do with a bloke sitting on a damp basket at 5:00 AM waiting for a quivertip to slam round. Everything. Absolutely everything.

You see, my quest for that elusive, mythical monster barbel—that double-figure whiskers I’ve been chasing through weedbeds and gravel runs for longer than my lower back cares to remember—isn't just about the fish. It’s about the ritual.

 Fishing, in its truest, most Piscatorial sense, is an ecosystem of tradition. You pack the rods, you obsess over the river levels, you freeze your fingers off threading line through iced-up guides, and you do it all knowing there is a specific reward waiting at the end of the line. 

For decades, that reward was a pint of Burton’s finest. Pedigree, or on those truly special, frost-bitten winter evenings, a sneaky bottle of Owd Rodger (god rest its soul, since they took that away from us prematurely I've stashed a few bottles away).

There’s a spiritual tie between the River Trent and the water that brewed those beers. It’s the same land. The same subterranean alchemy. When you sit on the Trent, targeting a specimen barbel, you are fishing in the shadow of giants—both piscatorial and industrial.
So how does the closure affect the quest?

Logistically, it doesn't change the weight of the fish. A 14-pounder doesn't care if the local brewery is open or closed. It still wants its halibut pellets. It still wants to play keep-away in the snags.
But emotionally? Philosophically? It changes the whole damn landscape. Stripping Marston's out of the Trent valley is like stripping the gravel out of a barbel's favourite feeding shelf. It leaves the whole thing feeling a bit hollow. 

A bit sanitized. If we lose the heritage surrounding our rivers the pubs, the local brews, the history then we’re just men pulling digital scales out of plastic bags in a world that’s forgotten how to appreciate the finer things.

They say they are looking for "independent custodians" to save Pedigree. I bloody hope they find them despite bugger all help from the government as expected. 

Because if I finally net that history-making, net-filling, whiskers-trailing beast of a Trent barbel sometime (Nic we need to sort a date out), and I can't toast it with a proper pint of Burton ale... well, it’ll still be a magnificent fish, but the victory will feel just a little bit flatter.

Keep your lines tight, and your glasses full while you still can.

Anyway another week, another series of dawns witnessed not from the tranquil, reed-fringed margins of the Warwickshire Avon, but through the smeary glass of the commuter bus while clutching a lukewarm travel mug. 

Don’t get me wrong the walk into the office has been surprisingly civilised of late. Sunrise over the office puts on a lovely little vista a fleeting bit of golden-hour drama before the curtain comes down and the day’s drudgery proper begins. 

But as the calendar ticks on and the light shortens, I can’t help noticing a grim piece of arithmetic: the days are pulling in, and my window for slipping away on a proper fishing trip is shrinking by the week.

After thirty-seven solid years in full-time employment thirty-seven years of memos, redundancies, mild peril, and staring blankly at CAD terminals and clay models while pretending to care about cars and vans I'd never buy,

I think we can all agree there are vastly superior ways for an aging chap to spend his finite time on this earth. Which brings me to the grand, glorious nonsense of angling.

It isn't just about fish, is it? It’s the entire coping mechanism. It’s sitting at your desk on a Monday morning, completely numb to a four-way email debate about unfeasible passenger airbag positions, cup holder dimensions and the latest NCAP protocols , while silently planning the next stealth offensive. 

Which stretch of the river? Is the flow right? Do I target those craftily cynical chub under the far-bank willow, or go full optimist for a proper Avon barbel? Then comes the real therapeutic magic: justifying the next vital equipment purchase. You convince yourself that a new centerpin reel, or that delightfully obscure tub of flavoured paste, isn't just a gadget it’s a certified, non-negotiable mental health booster. 

A prescription for the soul, wrapped in bubble wrap and delivered to the front door before the Wife notices.

The older I get, the more this little dose of bankside madness feels less like a hobby and more like a mandatory survival strategy in a world that’s gone completely off its rocker and only Lucy's or Microdots could be the temporary solution for some escapism . 

So, I’ll suffer the day's drudgery for another quadrennium (fingers crossed). But in my head, I’m already bankside, smelling the damp silt, watching a float bob gently in the crease, and letting the madness of the modern world just float right on down to Tewkesbury.

Anyway enough of the waffle !! to the fishing, this stretch of river has been dear to my heart over the years, specifically the swim known in my own personal, highly scientific lexicon as the Tragus. 

You see, the river in plan view has a funny way of mimicking the human body, or maybe it’s just that a lifetime on the banks of the Warwickshire Avon makes you see ears, noses, and questionable anatomical features in every passing ripple. 

If you find a stretch where the bank pinches in a sharp bend, a deliberate flap of clay and reed projecting right out into the flow like the tragus of an ear you don’t walk past it. 

You stop, you drop the heavily laden ruckbag with a thud that dislodges three vertebrae, and you watch. On the Avon, a feature shaped like that is an absolute goldmine for proper, whisker-twirling big barbel. The Tragus Swim is home to my best barbel from the river caught on a huge piece of spam, so it would be downright rude not to give it a go, especially considering I’ve been doing quite well on the barbel front lately.

Now, this spot is located well away from the young’uns, the gatecrashers, and the late-night party people who think a riverbank is a grand place for a Bluetooth speaker and lemon-flavored cider. Back in the day, this very bank was prime territory for the Gravers and yes, I proudly count myself as one of them, with my next rave scheduled for this weekend up in Glasgow alongside progressive house legends Nick Warren and Hernán Cattáneo, an event for which my knees are already filing a formal written complaint in advance. 

Looking at the silent, mysterious water today, I couldn't help but wonder whether the old Gravers were still in residence around here, or if they were all currently at home strapped to heat pads, nursing bad backs, and sipping chamomile tea while debating the merits of orthopaedic insoles. 

Only one way to find out, I suppose: cast a rig right into the crease, collapse heavily onto the unhooking mat, and turn the water quality up to eleven.

I settled into the bankside grass, adjusted my layers, and prayed for the tip to wrap around before the strict curfew called me home to the chaos. 

 It’s a delightfully mental game, angling one minute you're analysing hydrodynamic eddies with the laser precision of a hydraulic engineer, and the next you're practicing your 1992 rave moves in full camo waterproofs just to keep your toes from dropping off while a rogue chub nibbles your boilie blind. 

I better prepare itself for the Glasgow onslaught this weekend, but for now, the deep rhythmic bassline of the river was more than enough, and the wait was officially on.

Now, what I certainly didn’t expect, having barely settled my aching carcass onto the bank and flipped open a lukewarm flask of questionable tea, was a whacking, rod-rest-rattling chub bite within five short minutes of the bait touching down. 

"Here we go," I muttered to the startled reeds, puffing my chest out like a triumphant kingfisher. "I am indubitably on for a fish here."

Alas, the angling gods are cruel, mocking creatures who delight in inflating a man’s hopes only to pop them with a rusty hook.

Despite the swim looking absolutely prime for a bite nestled comfortably along the deep, mysterious outside bend where monsters surely lurked—those promising initial minutes ticked away into absolute, crushing silence. 

Dusk arrived with unseemly haste, creeping across the water like a wet blanket, closely followed by the suffocating gloom of my self-imposed curfew. Before I knew it, I was packing away slinking back to the motor with nothing to show for my misplaced optimism but a blank notebook and cold toes.

I shall return, of course. A glutton for punishment, I’ve already scouted a couple of alternative swims in my endless, quixotic quest to track down that elusive, mythical big barbel. The real snag, as ever with this magnificent stretch of river, is that there is simply too much glorious water to go at and in the convoluted mind of an obsessive angler, having too many good options is the greatest catastrophe of all.

Warwickshire Avon - Caneys and Carnivores

Now every serious predator angler knows that the eve of a big pike expedition requires rigorous preparation. You must check your trace wire, sharpen your treble hooks, oil your multipliers, and, most importantly, line your stomach with enough heavy-duty carbohydrate to survive a December gale.

Which is precisely why the rabble and I found ourselves at Caney’s Cider in Studley less than twenty-four hours before we were due on the water. A recommendation from blog reader and ex blogger Baz I'd been meaning to give it a go, and boy what a place with 20 ciders on offer. We were made to feel instantly comfortable right from the off which was nice and we'll be back because of that. Even the kids didn't seem to mind it and thankfully well behaved including Ben who can be noisy sometimes. 

Apparently they turn out roughly 7,000 litres of nectar a year from local Warwickshire apples, and stepping into their taproom at Victoria Works is like entering a sanctuary for weary bankside wanderers. 

We pulled up four stools and ordered a couple of pints alongside crusty ham and cheese rolls the kind of robust, jaw-straining bakery art that could double as a decent ledger weight if you ran out of lead.

As I managed a crusty Ham roll, the others chewed our their way through cheddar thick enough to draft a house upon, we discussed tactics for the next morning.

[ Crusty Roll ] + 
[ 2 Pints of Caney's ]
 = [ Complete Tactical Readiness ]

Two pints in, the mood was optimistic. The pike didn't stand a chance. The river was clear, the water temperature was dropping, and our confidence was hovering somewhere near orbit. 

Naturally, we couldn’t leave empty-handed. I left with a container filled with four pints of Redstreak—a 7.4% brew that smells like a sun-drenched autumn orchard and hits you with the torque of a twenty-pound crocodilian predator grabbing a deadbait.

"Just a nightcap to settle the pre-trip nerves," as I stowed the liquid gold by my feet in the passenger footwell of the Wife's car.

Whether we actually manage to haul a specimen pike onto the unhooking mat tomorrow morning remains to be seen. But sitting there in Studley, crusty roll crumbs on my t-shirt and four pints of 7.4% Redstreak resting in the kitchen, I reckon the trip is already a resounding triumph.

Anyway to the fishing, well it was hardly the lightning-fast, crack-of-dawn amphibious assault on the riverbank we had meticulously planned over our crusty ham and cheese rolls the afternoon before. The residual, lingering fumes of Caney’s 7.4% Redstreak cider had dictated a considerably more leisurely start to the morning, leaving us thoroughly pickled in autumn air and apple fuel

Yet, by some unholy miracle of the angling gods, Sam and I stumbled down the slippery mud-bank to find the entire sacred stretch glorious, dead quiet, and utterly devoid of competing souls.

The local grapevine had been positively buzzing with whispers that the native Esox lucius population was making frequent, tackle-busting appearances for matches and pleasure anglers alike. Naturally, steeped as we are in the ancient art of bankside paranoia, we both knew in our water-logged bones that every self-respecting pike within a five-mile radius had likely caught wind of our approach and buggered off three miles upstream to hide in the weeds.

Sam led our tactical vanguard, wielding a newly acquired topwater Ali Express Whopper Plopper—bought, I must proudly and emphatically stress, with his very own hard-earned pocket money rather than my rapidly crumbling wallet. The thing chugged through the murky currents with a hypnotic bloop-bloop-bloop like a frantic, confused water-rat, while I fished a juicy deadbait roach underneath an overdepth float into the dark, slacks just off the main channel.

We were only two swims into the campaign when the tranquil morning quiet was shattered by a sharp, urgent whisper from the peg just above me: "Daddy... an otter!" Sure enough, a whiskered river-demon glided right past the tips of our wellies without a single care in the world, casually going about his aquatic business and totally oblivious to the fact that we were supposed to be the undisputed apex predators of the venue.

Before we could recover from the wild beast's intrusion, we were joined by another brave father-and-son duo who were also out hunting freshwater crocodiles in the chill autumn air. They immediately confirmed our darkest tactical fears: the stretch had been insanely fickle of late, swinging violently between epic, legendary hauling sessions and soul-destroying, bone-chilling blanks where even the minnows went into hiding.

With the clock ticking down and despair creeping in like the river fog, Sam wisely scaled down his rig to drag out a solitary, brave little perch to save the family name from total dishonour. But a three-ounce perch does not satisfy a man who has drunk 7.4% cider, so Sam began frantically swapping out lures like a manic machine, testing soft baits, hard baits, and metal spinners to no avail to try and get a nice fish for a blog post for his Dad.

Then came the moment of supreme tactical madness the deployment of the nuclear option. Sam unclipped his gear and snapped on the single largest artificial bait in human history, an absolute behemoth of a soft-plastic monstrosity measuring well over thirty centimetres long that looked less like a lure and more like a submarine with treble hooks attached.

On the third cast, the river didn't just ripple it positively tore itself open as a terrifying, double-figure monster of a pike with a belly like a beer barrel surged out from the abyss. The creature struck the mammoth lure with the blinding speed and raw fury of a freight train, sending water erupting into the air, but somehow by some tragic twist of fate completely missed the steel hooks by a fraction of an inch before plunging back into the black depths.

Both of our hearts violently slammed against our ribs, and I am fairly certain I jumped three feet into the air as the sheer adrenaline surged through our veins. The final half-hour ticked away in a daze of trembling hands and quiet, reverent awe, with the river suddenly falling dead silent as if the monster had dragged the very atmosphere down into its lair.

We didn't land the leviathan, nor did we go home with wet unhooking mats, but as we packed up our rods in the fading afternoon light, none of it mattered in the slightest. With a wild otter passing at arm’s length, a heart-stopping surface explosion, and proper father-and-son time on the bank, it was a legendary outing and we will be back for revenge the moment the river conditions are a little better.

Warwickshire Avon - Bouillabaisse and Bouncebackability

Keiran had won the match the other day, which, as far as I could make out, had immediately elevated him to the position of Professor of River Fishing, with a specialism in telling other people how to catch fish. He'd drawn this particular peg and apparently given the fish such a memorable feeding experience that they'd practically been climbing over one another to get at his maggots, which was all very encouraging, although I couldn't help wondering whether he'd actually caught them or merely exaggerated their enthusiasm over a pint afterwards.

Still, a match win is a match win, and I was prepared to listen carefully to his advice, especially as it involved a peg I'd never fished in anger and fish that, according to Keiran, had practically been eating out of his hand. His instructions were beautifully uncomplicated: feed, feed, and more feed, until the fish arrived in sufficient numbers to make the place resemble a particularly badly organised school dinner queue. I was all for it, although experience has taught me that the moment somebody tells you a swim is full of fish, you can usually expect to catch a rusty bicycle and a shopping trolley.

The peg itself required a little commitment, as fishing it properly meant getting into the river and donning the waders. Now, I have always enjoyed getting intimate with a river, particularly when trotting a float, although I generally prefer the intimacy to be consensual and the water to remain on the outside of my clothing. Nevertheless, there was fish to be caught, apparently, and if that meant standing in cold water like a man who'd lost his trousers in a particularly unfortunate boating accident, then so be it.

There is something wonderfully appealing about wading into a river with a fishing rod, provided you ignore the temperature, the current, the possibility of finding a hole deeper than expected, and the fact that everybody on the bank is perfectly comfortable while you're slowly losing the feeling in your lower extremities. The fish, naturally, have no appreciation of these sacrifices, being far too busy deciding whether the maggot you've carefully presented is worth eating or whether they'd prefer to leave it there until you begin questioning your entire existence. It's all part of the sport, apparently, although I suspect that if fish had to stand waist-deep in freezing water to catch their dinner, they'd have evolved a more sensible arrangement.

My tackle for the occasion was a fifteen-foot Daiwa trotting rod, a stick float, and a couple of maggots on the crude size 16 hook. Nothing extravagant, nothing complicated, and certainly nothing that required a second mortgage, although the amount of money anglers spend on equipment in pursuit of fish that can be caught with a worm and a bent pin remains a subject best avoided at family gatherings. The Daiwa was ready, the float was attached, the hook was baited, and I was prepared to put Kieran's masterclass into practice.

Feed, trot, feed, trot, and then feed some more.

That was the prescription, and I intended to follow it with all the discipline of a man who'd been promised a decent day's fishing and had already mentally spent the proceeds. Keiran reckoned he'd drawn the fish right up to his feet through persistent feeding, so I began imagining shoals of hungry fish gathering around my boots, jostling for position like shoppers outside a supermarket on Christmas Eve. It was a pleasant picture, although I suspected the reality might involve one suicidal gudgeon and a roach with commitment issues.

The important thing, apparently, was not to be tight with the feed. This was excellent news, because I've always thought that if you're going to spend your hard-earned money on maggots, you might as well throw them into the river with the enthusiasm of a man scattering confetti at a wedding, particularly if there's a chance that some of the guests might be edible. Of course, there is a small drawback to this philosophy: if the fish don't arrive, you can end up feeding the entire aquatic population of the county without receiving so much as a thank-you card.

The swim, I have to admit, wasn't much to look at. Had I been strolling along the riverbank in search of somewhere to fish, I might well have passed it by without a second glance, perhaps stopping a little further along where the water looked more promising and the bank offered somewhere comfortable to sit. But then I've walked past plenty of good swims in my time, usually in favour of somewhere that looked absolutely magnificent and subsequently produced nothing except a numb backside and a profound sense of disappointment.

Match anglers, however, have memories like elephants when it comes to pegs that have produced a decent weight. They might struggle to remember where they've left the car keys, their wedding anniversary, or what their wife asked them to pick up from the shops, but mention a peg that produced twenty pounds of roach three seasons ago and suddenly they're quoting the exact date, the river level, the wind direction, and what the winning angler had for breakfast. At the weigh-in, these otherwise ordinary stretches of water become the subject of intense scrutiny, with matchmen mentally filing away every detail for future reference.

It's rather like property investment, except instead of studying house prices and calculating rental yields, you're watching another chap weigh in a net of fish and thinking, I'll have a bit of that next time. The peg acquires a reputation, the reputation becomes folklore, and before long there are anglers prepared to sell a kidney for the chance to stand in a patch of river that, to the untrained eye, looks about as promising as a puddle behind a bus shelter. Naturally, the fish are under no obligation to honour this reputation, but that has never stopped an angler developing a theory.

I slipped into position with the waders on, checked the float, pinched a couple of maggots onto the hook, and prepared to begin the process of feeding the fish until they either arrived in numbers or applied for a change of address.

The first feed went in, followed by the first trot, and for a few glorious moments everything looked wonderfully promising. The float travelled down the swim with all the confidence of an express train, although it failed to stop at any fish stations, and I retrieved it ready to go again, reminding myself that even the best anglers must occasionally endure a little patience.

Feed, trot, feed, trot.

I settled into the rhythm, sending the float down the current and introducing another helping of maggots as it returned. Somewhere beneath the surface, I imagined the fish gathering for their banquet, spreading the word through the local roach community that the catering was excellent and the portions unlimited, although I did wonder why nobody had thought to invite the two idiots standing in the river who were paying for it all.

Keiran had caught them by feeding heavily, and there was no reason to suppose that the fish had suddenly developed a dislike of maggots or a newfound appreciation for fasting. 

On the other hand, they might have been there yesterday, gorged themselves silly, and spent today lying on the riverbed with their fins behind their heads, regretting their excesses and promising never to eat another maggot again. Fish, I've discovered, can be remarkably inconsiderate when it comes to following a perfectly reasonable plan.

Still, there is a great deal to be said for a day spent trotting a float, even when the fish aren't playing ball. 

The rod is a pleasure to use, the current does most of the work, and there is something hypnotic about watching that little float travel downstream, provided you can resist the urge to interpret every tiny wobble as a bite from a specimen roach that will eventually require its own photograph in the local newspaper. It's a wonderful way to spend a morning, and considerably cheaper than therapy, unless you count the tackle purchases required to recover from a blank.

If the fish arrived, splendid; if they didn't, I could at least console oneself with the knowledge that we'd given the local maggot population a thorough workout. Sadly I had a curfew though, but around 2.5/3 hours fishing we were hoping for a few bites. And that, of course, is the trouble with fishing. You can receive the best advice from a match winner, choose a proven peg, use the right tackle, feed like there's a national shortage coming, and still find yourself wondering whether the fish have all moved to another river. Keiran had worked his magic here, but whether the spell would survive a change of angler remained to be seen.

For now, the float continued its journey downstream, the maggots continued their journey into the river, and I continued our determined efforts to justify the whole ridiculous business. Somewhere out there were fish that had apparently been queuing around Keiran's feet, and I was increasingly keen to have a word with them about their customer service.

After all, we'd come prepared to feed, feed, and feed some more.

The least they could do was turn up for dinner, ?

Well, they certainly did, although only for the first couple of hours till the sun buggered it, when the river decided that the best way to entertain me was to provide a bite a chuck. And when I say a bite a chuck, I mean a proper, no-nonsense, barely-had-time-to-put-the-kettle-on sort of bite a chuck. The chublets were particularly keen to get involved, those little head nodding hooligans that seem to possess an appetite entirely disproportionate to their size, with the odd decent chub putting in an appearance just to remind me that there were, in fact, some grown-ups in the river. 

There were also gudgeon, small dace, perch and a few roach, so the swim was beginning to resemble a village fete, with every species in attendance and all of them apparently expecting a free lunch. I had barely time to contemplate the mysteries of the universe, or indeed whether I had remembered to put the car keys somewhere sensible, before the float was disappearing again.

The real stars of the show, however, were two barbel that arrived with all the subtlety of a pair of hungry accountants discovering an expense account. I had been feeding maggots rather generously, regularly depositing an entire pouch into the swim, which is an astonishing quantity of little wriggling creatures when you stop to think about it. Most anglers might have considered this excessive, but the fish clearly regarded it as a perfectly reasonable breakfast provision. 

One of the barbel weighed in at a very respectable 5lb 8oz, and it was obvious that the maggot banquet had attracted the attention of something considerably more substantial than the chublets that had been mugging my hookbait all morning. The fish were hovering around in the feed, hoovering up maggots with the enthusiasm of a vacuum cleaner at a biscuit convention, and I could hardly blame them. If somebody had been throwing entire pouches of breakfast into my front garden, I suspect I would have been inclined to investigate myself.

Naturally, I had arrived at dawn, because that is what a dedicated angler does. He rises at an hour when normal, sensible people are still enjoying the warm embrace of their duvets, stumbles around in the half-light, loads the car with enough tackle to supply a small military expedition, and heads off to secure a swim as though the entire angling population of the county is poised to descend upon it. Except, of course, on this occasion, when I arrived to discover that the riverbank was deserted. Not another soul in sight. 

I could have stayed in bed, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and still wandered down later with plenty of room to choose from. But then I would have missed the pleasure of getting up in the dark for absolutely no reason whatsoever, which is an important part of the angling experience and something that non-anglers will never understand. We do not merely go fishing; we sacrifice sleep, comfort and occasionally our sanity in pursuit of fish that have absolutely no appreciation of our efforts.

For the first two hours or so, though, it was all thoroughly worthwhile. The float was rarely still, the maggots were disappearing at an alarming rate, and the fish seemed determined to make the most of my generosity. The chublets kept coming, punctuated by the occasional better chub, with the smaller species adding variety to the proceedings. 

Then, just as I was beginning to wonder whether I had stumbled upon some previously undiscovered piscatorial feeding station, the two barbel appeared and elevated the session from a pleasant morning's fishing to something rather more memorable. There is something deeply satisfying about watching a swim come alive when you get the feeding right, even if you do begin to wonder whether you should have taken out a second mortgage to pay for the maggots.

And then, as suddenly as it had all begun, the river switched off. The bites stopped, the float settled into an almost suspiciously peaceful existence, and the swim that had been behaving like a fishmonger's shop on Christmas Eve became as lively as a churchyard at midnight. I gave it a little time, naturally, because anglers are an optimistic breed and we are always convinced that the next bite will be the one that makes the entire session worthwhile. 

But the river had apparently decided that it had served its allotted quota of entertainment and that I had enjoyed quite enough excitement for one morning. There was little point in arguing with it. Rivers, like cats, are perfectly capable of making their feelings known, and neither is especially inclined to explain itself.

All told, I managed over 20lb of fish in around two and a half hours before the swim finally went dead, which was a thoroughly enjoyable result by anybody's standards. There had been a constant procession of chublets, a supporting cast of gudgeon, dace, perch and roach, and two barbel, including one of 5lb 8oz, which provided the sort of memorable interlude that makes all those early starts seem vaguely sensible. The maggots had been dispensed with the generosity of a lottery winner, the fish had responded magnificently, and I had enjoyed a cracking session without another angler in sight.

So, was getting up at dawn necessary? Absolutely not. Could I have stayed in bed? Almost certainly. Would I do it all again? 

Without the slightest hesitation. Because that is the peculiar magic of fishing. You can spend half the night preparing, rise at an ungodly hour, carry enough tackle to sink a barge, feed half a river with maggots and then discover that the fish have gone home for their afternoon nap. Yet somehow, you return to the car smiling, already thinking about the next session. And if the river happens to provide a bite a chuck, a couple of barbel and over 20lb of fish in a morning, well, that is merely the icing on the cake.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a maggot bill to recover from and a bed to apologise to.