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 !!

Warwickshire Avon - UFO's and Ultramicroscopes

A rather nice Sunday it was in Stratford-upon-Avon, I must admit, with anglers seemingly emerging from every bush, hedge and suspiciously convenient patch of riverbank. 

The Rec was absolutely rammed with fishermen, and, even better, quite a few youngsters were amongst them always good to see the next generation getting their waders muddy.

The water, unfortunately, was so clear you could probably have counted the scales on a gudgeon from the bridge, which isn't exactly ideal when you're trying to convince a barbel that your bait is something it absolutely must eat immediately.

Walking past Lucy’s Mill weir, we spotted a couple of young anglers, complete with tripods and the sort of enthusiasm normally reserved for discovering buried treasure, who had managed to tempt a barbel of around four pounds. They were absolutely chuffed to bits and rightly so. A proper little river prize, and a rather handsome fish to boot.

There’s something very encouraging about seeing youngsters catching good fish and looking genuinely delighted by it. Long may it continue… although perhaps next time somebody could have a word with the river and ask it to turn the lights off a bit.

The Sunday roast dinner we religiously have, despite the increasingly concerned eyebrow raises from certain members of the household, made way for sausages, an obscene quantity of buttery mash, onion gravy and peas. 

It was the sort of meal that makes you feel better about life, although with two hungry teenagers involved, the portion sizes were less “family dinner” and more “catering for a minor sporting event”.

There is, of course, no better sausage than a standard pork sausage from A W Lashfords, who have been making sausages since 1889. Back in 1916, during the First World War, when demand increased significantly, a pound of their finest would set you back four old pence.

Four pence. You can't even get a teenager to look up from their phone for four pence these days.

During the inter-war years they also started producing faggots, which really are superb. In fact, thinking about them now is making me hungry again, which is slightly annoying given that I’ve only just eaten and have absolutely no need for another meal.

Nothing good is cheap these days though, particularly when you have two hungry teenagers in attendance. A joint of beef brisket might not actually have cost that much more, but it would have disappeared so quickly that I’d have spent the evening wondering whether I had actually cooked it in the first place.

Anyway, after dinner I fancied a short fishing session to walk it off. Thankfully, despite being back drinking again now that I’m allowed to do so without everyone looking at me like I’ve just announced I’m taking up competitive juggling, that could wait until I got back.

I headed for a local stretch with the intention of trying to winkle out a barbel or, failing that, a decent chub. There had been a match on during the day, which isn't exactly ideal, although match anglers do at least provide a useful service by ensuring there isn't a maggot, caster or microscopic grain of groundbait left alive within half a mile of their peg.

When I arrived, however, a topping decent fish showed in one particular swim. The decision was therefore made for me, as it usually is when a fish has the good manners to advertise its presence.

Dusk was only an hour away, so I put a small amount of bait in and slowly got myself sorted. These are my favourite sort of sessions really; no expeditionary logistics, no tackle spread across the riverbank like a jumble sale and no food requirements capable of sustaining a family of six for three days.

Just a rod, a few bits of bait and the vague belief that something large might make a mistake.

I eventually cast out with some homemade paste and a Robin Red pellet, this time using a PVA bag of small pellets and a lead rather than a feeder. The bait had barely settled before the rod tip started twitching.

Then rattling.

Then tapping.

It was doing absolutely everything except screaming, “I’m a barbel, you idiot, strike now.”

But I sat on my hands. Years of experience have taught me that the more excited you get about a bite, the less likely it is to be a bite.There were decent fish showing in the swim too, which naturally made matters considerably worse. Every swirl became a barbel, every tap became a barbel and every slight movement of the rod tip became, in my head, a fish of biblical proportions.

In reality, it was probably something about the size of a Greggs beef and stilton bake.

Still, I waited.

And waited.

And eventually waited some more.

To cut a long story short, there was nothing to strike at. Not even a gluttonous chub which had managed to hook itself through sheer enthusiasm.

The river had basically dangled the possibility of a decent fish in front of me, allowed me to sit there getting increasingly excited about it and then decided it would be funnier if I caught absolutely nothing.

It was right.

Eventually the curfew arrived and I had to pack up. The club don't want you using headtorches, which I completely understand because there are rules for a reason, although I did find this particularly amusing when the same dog walker appeared on the opposite bank.

This wasn't a dog walker so much as a mobile lighthouse.

His torch was absolutely enormous and lit up the opposite bank, the trees, the water and probably several villages in the general vicinity. It was like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, only instead of aliens arriving, there was a bloke walking a Labrador.

I half expected the river to start bubbling and a spaceship to emerge from behind the trees.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting there in near darkness because my little headtorch apparently represents an unacceptable threat to the tranquillity of the countryside.

Still, rules are rules.

So I packed everything away, walked back to the car and headed home having achieved precisely what I'd set out to achieve.

Absolutely nothing.

Another blank.

Still, at least there were sausages.

And, if I'm being completely honest, the sausages had produced considerably more action than the fishing.

Warwickshire Avon - Whale Sharks and Whatchamacallitisms

I wasn't overly bothered about going fishing, but Sam had got his fishing mojo back and fancied a trip to the syndicate stretch in search of a chub or barbel, with the added bonus of perhaps catching a pike or zander. Naturally, this meant we were going fishing, and naturally, all the gear needed sorting out by me because, well, it always bloody is! After dinner, with everything packed and the Jimny fired up, we headed off to the river. 

The jungle drums had been beating for a while, as Neil from the garage and Sean from the syndicate were already fishing a local water, trying for a barbel in the same area where I've had a couple recently. Always nice to know the fish are there, although whether they're actually interested in feeding is another matter entirely.

The skies were clear, which wasn't ideal, but there's no point sitting at home on the sofa moaning about the conditions. You can't catch anything without a bait in the water, after all, although I'm beginning to suspect you can't necessarily catch anything with one in the water either! We arrived around 6.30pm, with dusk at 7.20pm, and there's no need to rush on this stretch as we can fish well into darkness. 

It's a lovely, big, open swim, so even with three rods out, we weren't exactly tripping over each other. Sam took the left-hand side, I set up on the right, and the sleeper rod went to my right with a roach deadbait on a Zandavan roll-over indicator. The swim has some decent depth and has produced my recent carp, along with barbel, chub and some nice bream over the years, so there was every reason to be optimistic. Whether the fish had received the invitation was another matter.

We settled in as dusk arrived, followed fairly quickly by the stars, and it was lovely to have some proper chill-out time with Sam. We chatted about all sorts, from UFOs to how would you catch a whale shark, tuna fishing and wow, another shooting star. 

Basically, everything apart from anything remotely connected to what we were actually there to do! Still, these evenings are what it's all about, and there's something rather nice about sitting beside a river with your lad, putting the world to rights while waiting for a fish to come along and ruin the conversation. Unfortunately, the only things ruining the evening were the complete lack of bites and the growing suspicion that the local fish had all gone out for the night.

As the evening wore on, the chub remained conspicuous by their absence, and the roach deadbait attracted precisely zero interest. Not even a little knock to suggest a passing pike had considered having a look. The indicator sat there looking about as useful as a chocolate teapot, and I began to wonder whether I'd accidentally put the deadbait in the wrong river. 

We persevered until an hour after dusk, but eventually even I was feeling the cold. It had been warm enough for shorts and a T-shirt during the day, but back at the car the temperature was down to eight degrees. Quite a drop, and one that reminded me that autumn doesn't give a toss about whether you've dressed appropriately or not.

It wasn't just us suffering either, as Sean and Neil had also blanked, which was reassuring in a slightly miserable sort of way. Meanwhile, syndicate member and 'Barbel under the Bridge Author' Ade Busby was fishing a match on the Middle Wye among 35 other anglers, and apparently there wasn't much happening there either. He eventually switched to the margins to catch a few perch, presumably just to make sure he'd actually been fishing rather than spending the afternoon practising his staring-at-a-float technique. 

When that many anglers are struggling, you know things aren't quite right. We need water, and plenty of it, because the fish seem to have gone on strike, and judging by the lack of action, they're unlikely to be returning to work without a fairly substantial pay rise.

Still, there's always another plan, and this morning I've rigged up a maggot feeder rod, ready for when the maggot munchers decide not to put in an appearance. 

I've been meaning to try this method properly for ages, so hopefully it'll produce a few chub or barbel when the time comes. Whether it will work remains to be seen, of course, but at least it'll give me something else to blame when nothing happens. 

For now, the rods are sorted, the maggots are on standby, and Sam has had his fishing fix. We didn't catch a chub, a barbel, a pike or a zander, but we had a good evening together, which is the important bit. Although, if I'm honest, a fish or two wouldn't have gone amiss either!