Warwickshire Avon - Piscatorial Perseverance and Pugnaciousness

Now if ever there were a lesson in listening to one’s body, I chose to ignore it somewhere between shin splints and the third time I drove back and forth over the bridge at River Avon like a man trying to convince himself the water level might drop out of sheer embarrassment. The trip to Glasgow had clearly taken more out of me than I was prepared to admit. 

Shin splints announced themselves the moment I returned to work, my right knee has since been sending strongly worded complaints to head office, and yet there I was, peering at a river the colour of builder’s tea, thinking, “Yes, this looks ideal.” Mrs Newey, saint that she is, had already organised an evening out in Stratford-upon-Avon with the promise of food, wine and most seductively of all waking up without Ben launching himself into the room at 6:02am like a caffeinated ninja. 

The main field was flooded. Not romantically flooded, not artistically misted, but properly, squelch-in-your-soul flooded. The footbridge over the brook was underwater after finding an access point, bugger  !!. “Go home, Mick,” it whispered, in the gentle lapping tones of inevitability. But I pressed on, because I had barbel on the brain and a bag of spam that wasn’t going to disgrace itself by remaining unused

Any sensible man would have put his feet up. I, however, turned right instead of left and effectively volunteered for additional suffering adjacent to the M40 motorway, because nothing says “rest and recovery” quite like a mile’s hobble (yes a mile I've just measure it) with a fishing rod while your knees and legs are screaming.

The river, recently a handsome olive green, had transformed overnight into something resembling liquid chocolate mousse with anger issues. Visibility was non-existent. If you’d dropped a hippo in there it would have vanished without so much as a ripple. Perfect barbel conditions, I told myself. The sort of water that makes them swagger about with their whiskers twitching, looking for trouble and processed meat products.

I began in a swim that had previously gifted me a near double in similar conditions, which of course meant it now behaved like a sulking teenager and refused to acknowledge my existence. A huge lump of spam went out first, backed up by groundbait pungent enough to make a lesser man question his life choices. An hour passed. 

Not a tremor. Not even the polite tap-tap of a curious minnow. The only thing nibbling was my confidence. I moved downstream to a peg that looked so good it practically posed for a calendar. “Here,” it seemed to say, “is where heroic things happen.” Another hour. More spam. Still nothing. The only action came from small fish discreetly trimming the meat in the first swim, which at least confirmed I hadn’t somehow cast into a parallel universe.

Deciding that subtlety might succeed where brute luncheon meat had failed, I scaled down to pellets on the hair with a robin red paste wrap, adding enough aroma to suggest I was marinating the entire river. Fifteen minutes later the rod tip gave a sharp pull. Not the tentative peck of a time-waster, but the sort of tug that makes your spine straighten despite its objections. 

Then another pull, and this one meant business. I struck into something solid. For a split second I suspected a chub, but it pulled with a determined thump that travelled right through my faithful Korum Big River rod and into my already aggrieved joints. 

This was no half-hearted participant. After a spirited scrap in water the colour of cocoa catastrophe, a barbel materialised from the gloom like a whiskered submarine. Not a monster. Not a record breaker. But a barbel. And in those conditions, on that knee, with those shins, it might as well have been a personal best.

I scooped it up first time always a minor miracle and admired the bronze flanks gleaming despite the pea-soup backdrop. A small’un, yes, but as welcome as central heating in January. There’s something deeply satisfying about being the only fool on the bank and being vindicated, even modestly. 

I had braved floodwater, wind chill and my own questionable judgement, and here was proof that sometimes the river rewards stubbornness rather than punishes it. I slipped it back, watched it disappear into the murk, and immediately began feeling chilly enough to question every decision that had led me there since birth.

With one fish safely ticked off, I decided not to push my luck or my ligaments any further. The walk back felt longer, naturally, because gravity only assists when you don’t need it. But there was a quiet glow beneath the top layer of thermals and self-reproach. 

You cannot catch fish sat at home. You also cannot aggravate shin splints sat at home, but that’s a detail we’ll gloss over. Rivers like that up, coloured, full of mystery often bring the best out of barbel. They seem to revel in the chaos, rooting about with cheerful abandon while anglers debate the wisdom of waterproof socks.

So yes, I probably should have turned left. I probably should have elevated my legs and sipped tea while preparing for our child-free sojourn in Stratford-upon-Avon. 

But then I wouldn’t have stood alone beside a chocolate torrent, clutching a rod, muttering encouragement to a pellet wrapped in something that smells faintly illegal. 

I wouldn’t have felt that jolt, that surge, that brief, glorious reminder that even when your body is protesting like a striking workforce, the river can still surprise you. And as Mrs Newey and I later clinked glasses, knowing no small person would burst in at dawn, I could at least say I’d earned it one small, spirited barbel at a time.

Warwickshire Avon - Magniloquence and Marginality (PB Content)

Fishing, I have long suspected, is a sport designed specifically to test the structural integrity of a man’s optimism. It lures you in with pastoral promises and then batters you about the head with wind, rain, rising water and the occasional two-ounce gudgeon that hooks itself in the nostril and looks at you as if to say, “Really? This is what you came for?” And yet we persist. We watch river levels like Victorian astronomers scanning the heavens, convinced that this time this precise alignment of rainfall, temperature and domestic scheduling will produce something magnificent.

The week in question had been one of those dreary, damp sagas where every river within sensible driving distance had decided to impersonate a minor ocean. The Arrow and the Alne were not merely up; they were exploring neighbouring counties. The only sliver of hope lay with the dear old Warwickshire Avon, which was high, yes, but not yet in the sort of mood where it tries to repossess your landing net. It was creeping upward, slow and ominous, like a cat preparing to leap onto a shelf full of heirlooms.

Now, I am not a man prone to gossip, but when Nic of Avon Angling was messaging me 24 hours before and  he'd “bagged up” to the tune of 30lb of chub, including a brace of fives and a four, trotting maggots one listens. One leans in. One abandons all previous life plans and begins reorganising the boot of the car with the urgency of a Formula One pit crew. “Get out there,” he said. “It’s great conditions.” Which, translated from Tackle-Shop Optimism into English, means: “You might catch something memorable, provided you don’t drown.” I tend to fish maggots now rather than bread for chub as it's less messy for starters but it just works when the conditions are right. 

As luck would have it, I finished work at midday on Friday. This is the sort of blessing that should be commemorated in stained glass. However, fishing time was to be rationed like wartime sugar because my wife had yoga at 5:30pm, meaning I needed to be home by 5:15pm to assume control of the household orchestra, conducted entirely in the key of chaos. Thus the window of opportunity was narrow more arrow slit than bay window.

Undeterred, I selected a stretch known for barbel, reasoning that the double-figure temperatures might have stirred them from their winter sulk. It was a 45-minute drive, which in angling mathematics leaves approximately 23 minutes of actual fishing once you factor in faffing, tea-pouring and the ceremonial staring at the river as though it might offer guidance. The upstream gauges were rising at a pace best described as “ambitious,” but hope is a stubborn weed in the angler’s garden.

Upon arrival, the car park resembled a modest trade fair for waterproof clothing. Vans lined up like damp pilgrims. Two of my favoured pegs were already occupied by men who clearly shared my hydrological obsession. I performed the customary wander hands in pockets, nodding sagely at nothing in particular before trudging downstream to a wider, steadier stretch. Here, the river flowed with a lovely, even pace. Upstream looked like it was auditioning for a disaster documentary; down here it was positively civilised.

Trotting it was, and then a go for the barbel at the end.

I fed maggots for a good fifteen minutes, sprinkling them with the reverence of a man sowing the seeds of destiny. A size 20 Guru hook nominally a 20 but in reality something closer to a 16 unless you’re measuring with electron microscopes adorned with two bronze maggots. First trot: nothing. Second trot: the float dipped with purpose and I lifted into a solid, reassuring thump.

A chub of about a pound and a half.

Reader, after a run of blanks that had me contemplating selling my rods and investing in a set of golf clubs (imagine the horror me discussing handicaps rather than hooklinks), this felt like redemption. Next cast: another. Then another. 

The float buried with cheerful regularity, and soon I was in that rare state of angling bliss where you stop thinking about river gauges, domestic curfews and existential dread. In the first hour I landed six or seven chub of similar stamp solid, silvery, obliging creatures with faces that suggest mild disapproval.

And then, just as I was congratulating myself on my tactical brilliance, the float vanished in a manner that suggested something far more serious than another pound-and-a-half specimen had taken an interest. I struck into what can only be described as a moving sandbag. No rattling head shakes, no frantic darting just immense, implacable weight hugging the bottom.

“Barbel,” I whispered to myself, because hope is incurable.

I coaxed it upstream, rod hooped, heart thundering. Inch by inch it came, resisting with the quiet authority of something that has paid its council tax for decades. And then, in the olive-green water beneath the rod tip, it surfaced.

Good grief.

It was a chub. But not the sort one casually swings in while discussing the weather. This was a chub that had clearly made excellent life choices. Long, broad-backed, pale flanks gleaming in the muted light. When it saw me it bolted, as if suddenly remembering an urgent appointment elsewhere. I managed to turn it somewhere between panic and prayer and gradually it conceded. Into the net it slid, vast and magnificent, like a bronzed log with opinions.

On the bank it looked even bigger. The sort of fish that makes you glance around to ensure witnesses are present. Surely this would be a new personal best? The scales were produced with trembling hands. 6lb 1oz.

It didn’t beat my all-tackle PB. But it did nudge past my float-caught best by a 6 ounces. The narrowest of margins it didn't beat my overall PB, but in angling terms that’s the difference between “quite pleased” and “insufferable for at least a fortnight.” I admired it in the rain because of course it had begun raining properly now, the heavens choosing this moment to re-enact the Great Flood before slipping it back to sulk beneath some tree roots.

With the maggots becoming increasingly enthusiastic about escape and the swim beginning to resemble a developing wetland, I switched to the barbel gear. By now the river was rising with alarming enthusiasm. The margin crept closer. The bank grew softer. Each step made a noise like a sponge contemplating its life choices.

I persisted.

A two-pound chub took the barbel bait with surprising gusto, followed by a bream that bit like a steam train and fought like a resigned cushion. 

The water continued its climb. Debris sailed past with increasing frequency twigs, leaves, possibly someone’s garden furniture. 

I fished right up to curfew, glancing at my watch with the anxiety of a man who knows yoga ends promptly and children expect dinner with alarming regularity.

No barbel came to the net.

And yet, as I packed away in the drizzle, boots squelching, net dripping, I felt absurdly content. 

Because fishing is not, in truth, about the relentless pursuit of whiskered leviathans. It is about moments. The float sliding under. The sudden, immovable weight. The sight of a truly exceptional chub materialising from coloured water like a myth made flesh.

The Warwickshire Avon will likely be over its banks tomorrow, strutting about the floodplain like it owns the place. I will no doubt be poring over gauges again, convincing myself that floodwater barbel are not just possible but practically inevitable.

I will probably get soaked. I may blank. I may once again threaten to take up golf.

But somewhere beneath that rising water swims a 6lb 1oz chub that, for one glorious Friday afternoon, made all the damp socks, frantic dashes home and hydrological obsessing entirely worthwhile. 

And that, dear readers, is quite enough to keep a man gloriously, hopelessly hooked.

Warwickshire Avon - Anticipation and Annihilation

There’s a peculiar cruelty to the river season, and it always seems to arrive dressed as optimism. For weeks it sulks, sulks some more, and then just as you’ve resigned yourself to polishing reels in the garage like a widower dusting photo frames the air temperature climbs to a balmy fifteen degrees and the water begins to warm as if it has finally remembered its purpose in life. 

Suddenly the river looks alive again, like it’s cleared its throat and is ready to sing. And what does the calendar say? Of course. The end is just around the corner. Typical. It’s as if the fish have held a meeting and decided to switch on precisely when the angler’s opportunities switch off.

Next weekend, however, offers hope. A long-overdue weekender with my good mate Simon awaits us on the ever-lovely River Teme, specifically the charming stretch at Mill Cottage (yes again !!). The very name sounds wholesome enough to guarantee a chub. There is no elaborate strategy, no military-grade baiting campaign just a proper catch-up, a flask that will definitely be too small, and some honest trotting for whatever feels reckless. 

Then, as dusk creeps in like a suspicious bailiff, we’ll have a speculative go for a barbel or a decent chub with a bit of ledgering. The phrase “outside chance” will be uttered several times, which in angling language means “I have already pictured the photograph.”

It’s been a while since we last booked a proper fishing weekender. Life has a habit of filling diaries with things that don’t involve rod rests. I sometimes think I’m busy, then I look at Simon’s schedule and realise I operate on apprentice level. He turns sixty this year the senior member of our little band and if anyone deserves to wind down, it’s him. 

Though if you’ve ever tried telling a lifelong angler to relax, you’ll know the only winding down he’s interested in involves a centrepin and a downstream glide. Fishing is his therapy, same as it is for the rest of us. The minute your boots hit the bank, the mind clears like someone’s opened a window. Mortgages, pensions, emails, responsibilities gone. Replaced entirely by the intense analysis of a single quivering rod tip.

Of course, trusting in the fishing gods is a risky business. The only bank time I could squeeze in before it gets a little chillier was a brief smash-and-grab after work, the sort of session conducted with one eye on the fading light and the other on club rules. 

I was 24 hours earlier bankside than the planned session you see, as I received a very welcoming WhatsApp message from the Wife mid CAD bashing (a simple enough steering wheel rim / hand blockage study on an outboard air vent if you're interested) 

Half an hour after dusk and I had to be gone, like a barbel-seeking Cinderella. I’ve said it before I struggle behind a motionless rod. Give me a float to run through and I’m a picture of calm. Sit me behind a static tip and within twenty minutes I’m interpreting gusts of wind as personal insults. Still, an hour and a half is just about within my tolerance. Just.

The tactics were simple enough: pungent groundbait that could wake the dead and a paste-wrapped pellets designed to offend anything with nostrils. I lowered it in with all the quiet confidence of a man who has read about success happening to other people. The river looked right. It felt right. Somewhere, surely, a whiskered resident was considering my offering with interest. Or possibly swimming in the opposite direction. That’s the thing about ledgering it gives you plenty of time to imagine both outcomes in vivid detail.

Meanwhile, news filtered through that Ade Busby (Yes the very him !!) had slipped out on the syndicate stretch of the Warwickshire Avon and, after a day of nothing much at all, winkled out a tidy 6lb 6oz chub as the light faded, plus another chub for good measure. 

Of course he did. That’s how these stories go. Nothing all day, then action at the death the sort of ending that keeps the rest of us awake at night, replaying our own early pack-ups with regret. I want a piece of that last-light magic. I want the rod to hoop over just as I’m convincing myself it’s time to call it.

The trouble is, diary commitments and the small matter of earning a living back have a habit of intruding. I don’t get paid for taking afternoons off now I'm back jobbing again to commune with fish, much as I’ve considered pitching the idea. And just when the rivers seem to be waking up properly, bank time becomes a rare commodity. It’s a familiar frustration for any angler juggling real life with river life the eternal balancing act between responsibility and the irresistible pull of flowing water.

Still, next weekend stands there on the horizon like a promise. Two days of river air, questionable casting accuracy, and the comfortable silence that only long friendships allow. There will be laughter, mild exaggeration, and at least one bold declaration that “they’re having it tonight.” Whether they are or not is almost secondary. Because the real prize isn’t always the fish. It’s the reset. The tonic. The glorious narrowing of focus to float, tip, current and hope.

And if, as the final light drains from the River Teme, a rod finally pulls round and Simon lets out that triumphant shout that echoes across the meadow, then all the calendar chaos and hurried smash-and-grabs will have been worth it. If not, we’ll pack up grinning anyway, already planning the next assault. Because that’s what we do. We return. 

We believe. And just when the season seems to be slipping through our fingers, we convince ourselves the best bite is still to come.

Anyway to the task in hand !!

Half an hour into dusk and half an hour after that was the gospel according to the Barbel Whisperer. Not a man of wild theories or Facebook folklore, but a quiet riverbank sage whose words tend to carry the weight of wet keepnets and bent rods. “That’s when the dinner bell rings,” he’d said. And you don’t argue with a man who speaks fluent barbel.

So I timed it right. Slipped onto the stretch with that hopeful tread every angler knows equal parts optimism and delusion. Two chaps were already installed. One stationed upstream by the weir, looking as though he’d merged with his chair. The other in the peg I fancied. He’d apparently been there since breakfast and had a solitary chub to show for it a fish that probably threw itself on the hook out of sympathy. Oddly, he packed up just before dusk. Prime time approaching and he legs it. Curious business.

In wandered a passer-by a matchman by the look of him. You can always tell. They carry themselves like riverbank cartographers, scanning flow lines and marginal reeds as if plotting troop movements. 

Pleasant fellow. We had a natter. “If you don’t catch here,” he advised, “try the next peg down. Better chance of a barbel.” Said with the quiet certainty of someone who’s seen things. River things.

So down I went.

Not much time now. The light was draining from the sky in that theatrical way it does as if someone backstage is slowly dimming the world. Over in one of the Piccadilly Circus gardens as we jokingly call that row of riverside houses a security light blinked on. Motion sensor perhaps. Or maybe it sensed angling optimism.

Five minutes later an elderly voice rang out, sharp as a struck match and loud enough to WAKE THE DEAD !!!

“Are you alright?”

I nearly struck at that.

“Yes, fine thanks!”

“What are you doing?”

There’s something wonderfully suspicious about that question when you’re sitting motionless by a river.

“I’m fishing! I’ll be off after dusk.”

Pause. Then, “Oh! I couldn’t see your rod. I thought you were just sitting there.”

I raised it obligingly, like a flag of peaceful intent. She seemed satisfied and retreated, presumably to report to the swans that the intruder was harmless.

It was a lovely swim, truth be told. Steady pace, good crease line, depth where it mattered. According to the matchman, the lady feeds the swans and the fish loiter for leftovers. Free dinners create habits even underwater. I started with pellets wrapped in paste. Faithful, methodical, sensible.

Nothing.

Not a tremor.

So I switched to meat. Because when reason fails, luncheon meat often steps in.

And then precisely at dusk, as if scripted  the rod absolutely slammed round. Not a polite nod, not a barbel pluck. This was violence. Carbon hooped, tip lunged, heart stopped. I struck.

Thin air.

The line had parted.

Just like that.

No resistance. No thumping tail. No heavy, nodding surge of a hooked barbel. Just slackness and the slow, sickening realisation that whatever had been there was now elsewhere probably laughing. What happened? Pike snaffled the meat? Line nicked on something unseen? Had I tangled around the rest like a complete novice? The mind replays it in slow motion, editing and re-editing, looking for clues that aren’t there. All I know is there was no fish on the bank. And no hook on the line.

Too late to set up again. The light was gone. The river had resumed its calm indifference.

So I trudged back to the car, tail firmly between legs, replaying the moment like a missed penalty in a cup final.

That’s fishing though, isn’t it? Hours of nothing. Seconds of chaos. And a lifetime wondering what was on the end.

The dinner bell rang.

I just wasn’t invited to eat.