Warwickshire Avon - Baitcasterisation and Bankchairmanship

Sam has, somewhat unexpectedly, started showing a bit of interest in fishing again, which is obviously a good thing although I'm not entirely sure whether my bank account is going to agree with that assessment. There was a time when trying to get him interested in fishing was a bit like trying to persuade a cat that having a bath would be an enjoyable experience, so any sudden enthusiasm has to be encouraged before it disappears again.

Consequently, when he said he was happy to join me at the BIG Fish N Show at Baden Hall Fishery on Saturday, I wasn't going to start asking awkward questions about exactly why he wanted to go. Sometimes in life you simply accept a minor miracle when it happens and ask questions later.

The BIG Fish N Show is a relatively new addition to the angling calendar and it was the fact that it was being held outside that initially sparked my interest. I'm not quite sure what this says about me because the words "outdoor fishing show" and "British weather" aren't exactly a combination that normally fills me with confidence. 

Still, there were apparently loads of well-known anglers going to be there and I thought surely it couldn't be that bad, could it? Famous anglers, tackle manufacturers, fishing lakes and the prospect of spending several hours looking at fishing gear I didn't know I needed seemed like a reasonably good way of spending a Saturday.

The journey up wasn't too bad either and after about an hour and fifteen minutes travelling up the M6 we rolled into Baden Hall at around 9.00am. The car park was already pretty busy, which suggested that a significant proportion of the British angling population had independently arrived at exactly the same conclusion as us.

You always know a fishing show is going to be reasonably well attended when you start wondering whether you've accidentally parked at the wrong event. There were cars everywhere and people wandering around with the unmistakable look of anglers who had already mentally spent money despite not having got through the entrance yet.

Having never been to Baden Hall Fishery before, I was actually quite impressed with the place. The lakes looked pretty decent and there was plenty of space, although obviously my first thought was less about the quality of the fishery and more along the lines of "I wonder what's in there?"

There was one lake absolutely full of match anglers, all looking incredibly serious. They had the sort of concentration normally associated with bomb disposal, despite the fact that most of them appeared to be fishing for things that probably wouldn't have eaten the contents of my bait box if I'd thrown the entire thing in.

Another lake had more specialist anglers fishing, which was much more my sort of thing. There is something about specialist fishing that appeals to me because nobody seems quite as stressed about whether they've had 37 fish by lunchtime and whether the angler next to them has had 38.

The show itself had a reasonable turnout from the tackle manufacturers, with Trakker and Fox being particularly prominent. The carp anglers were absolutely loving it, especially the latest bivvies and bedchairs, and I have to admit that the modern bedchairs are bloody impressive.

They've come on enormously since the days when a fishing bed was essentially a folding metal frame with a thin piece of material stretched across it. Some of the modern versions look more comfortable than the bed I sleep in at home, and I'm beginning to think the only thing missing is somebody bringing you a cup of tea and asking whether you'd like the curtains drawn.

The Tempur mattress might have finally met its match. If you can get a bedchair with adjustable lumbar support, memory foam, a pillow and enough room to turn over without waking up your neighbour, I'm not sure why anybody would ever go home again.

The obvious problem is that the modern carp angler now seems to require more equipment to go fishing than I have in my entire house. Rods, reels, bivvies, bedchairs, sleeping bags, alarms, tables, chairs, cooking equipment and probably enough spare clothing to survive the Battle of the Somme.

I suppose if you're going to sit beside a lake for 72 hours waiting for a carp to eat a boilie, you might as well be comfortable. Personally, if I'm going to spend three nights beside a lake without catching anything, I generally just call it a holiday.

The Predator tackle stand was probably the busiest stand there, certainly from what I could see. There were people absolutely everywhere, and judging by the amount of tackle being carried away I suspect they must have had a fairly successful weekend.

Predator anglers are an interesting bunch because there seems to be an almost unlimited number of lures available for catching fish that are quite capable of eating virtually anything. Yet somehow you still need 47 different colours, four different sizes and something that looks like a diseased duck.

Sam was particularly taken with the Predator stand and eventually picked up an Abu Black Ops rod and reel. To be fair, it looked pretty cool, and there is something about black fishing tackle that makes you feel considerably more serious about your fishing even when you're standing on the bank wearing an old fleece with a crisp packet in the pocket.

I suspect that was probably at least 60 percent of the reason he bought it. The other 40 percent was probably because it looked like something you'd expect to see being used by a special forces operative in a film.

The Korum boys were there too and I had a chat with Harry Pardoe, who I've met before riverside where I put him on to some river Zander. It's always nice bumping into people you know at these things because you can immediately stop pretending you're interested in whatever stand you're standing in front of and have a proper conversation.

I've got a slightly complicated relationship with Korum gear these days. Some of their stuff is genuinely very good, while other items leave me wondering whether somebody has simply walked around the warehouse shouting "we need another product" and then put a logo on whatever happened to be lying on the floor. You just have to cherry-pick the good stuff from the dross. It's a bit like shopping in a charity shop, except everything costs more and there is considerably less chance of finding a decent pair of curtains.

The Winning Ways guys were there as well and there were loads of other familiar faces wandering around. Jeremy Wade was apparently there, which seems entirely appropriate because if there's one man who looks as though he could find a prehistoric monster hiding underneath a pallet, it's Jeremy Wade.

Terry Hearn was also apparently there, although despite wandering around for quite some time I never actually saw him. This has led me to believe that Terry has perfected some sort of advanced camouflage technique involving a hat, a hoodie and standing quietly behind a display of terminal tackle.

Then there were the YouTubers. Quite a lot of YouTubers, actually, which is probably something that every modern fishing show now has to have or the younger generation might suddenly remember that they could be outside actually fishing. Cal and Dani and Tom Wilshaw pedalling his coffee it's nice to actually see these people in person. 

The queue to see Carl from Fish With Carl was absolutely enormous. It seemed to stretch on forever and people were patiently waiting for their chance to meet him, have a photograph and presumably tell him how many times they'd watched his latest video. The queue was so long that I started wondering whether some of them had brought camping equipment. Which, given the amount of carp gear available at the show, wouldn't actually have been difficult.

Alan Blair was there as well, although by the time I saw him it looked as though he was having to make do with what could only be described as the dregs. I suspect this was probably exaggerated in my head because Alan still seemed to have plenty of people around him, but compared with the Carl queue it looked like he had been allocated the overflow car park.

I'm sure he wasn't bothered though. If you're Alan Blair, you're probably quite used to people wanting to talk to you, although I would imagine there comes a point where you start hoping somebody will ask you about the weather just so you can have a normal conversation. 

I managed to have a chat with Matt Hayes, which was one of the highlights for me. I've watched countless hours of his television programmes over the years, so it was quite strange standing there having an ordinary conversation with somebody whose face has been on my television for years.

Thankfully he was a thoroughly nice chap and very easy to talk to. There's always a slight danger when meeting someone you've watched on television that they turn out to be completely different in real life, but fortunately there was none of that. I didn't ask him whether he'd ever wondered what happened to all the fish he'd caught on television. I'm sure the answer is probably more complicated than "they're still in the river".

I also had a good chat with Jack Perks, who is much more on my sort of wavelength. He's one of those anglers who seems equally happy targeting the smaller species as he is going after the bigger stuff, which is something I can relate to.

There is something very satisfying about catching a small fish that you've deliberately targeted. You don't always need a fish that looks like it needs its own postcode to make a fishing trip worthwhile.

Apparently Jack is going to be fishing for tuna and blue shark soon, which is quite a leap from some of the smaller species he targets. I did briefly wonder whether he would be taking a 10ft feeder rod and a tin of luncheon meat, but presumably he'll have something slightly more substantial.

I bought a book from Jack as well and got him to sign it. I now own a signed book by Jack Perks, which makes me feel considerably more cultured than I actually am.

Of course, owning a signed fishing book doesn't necessarily mean you are going to read it. At the moment it's sitting somewhere safe, which is usually the first stage in ensuring that you never see it again. Cal and Dani were there too, along with Tom Wilshaw and Danny from Danny's Angling Blog on the Korum stand. There really was a decent selection of people there and, for a relatively new show, it seemed to have attracted a fair amount of interest.

The weather, inevitably, had decided that it wasn't going to make things too easy. We had a series of showers coming through, which meant everybody was repeatedly putting waterproofs on, taking waterproofs off and then putting them back on again five minutes later.

It's the traditional British outdoor experience. You don't actually dress for the weather, you dress for all possible weather conditions simultaneously and then spend the day carrying the clothes you aren't currently wearing.

The Angling Trust had clearly identified an opportunity. They were selling umbrellas for a tenner to people stuck in the queues and, judging by the number of them being carried around, they must have shifted quite a few.

There's something very British about paying ten pounds for an umbrella because you've voluntarily attended an outdoor event in September. Somewhere in the distance, a weather forecaster was probably laughing. I did think about buying one, but then remembered that I already own approximately 14 umbrellas, none of which are ever where I need them. This is one of the great mysteries of domestic life.

You can have six umbrellas in your house and still leave home in the rain without one. They don't disappear exactly, they simply relocate themselves to places where they become completely useless. Eventually we'd seen enough and decided to head home. It had been a good day though and, considering we'd spent most of it walking around looking at fishing tackle rather than actually fishing, I'd say it had been a success.

Then came the small matter of the M6. The motorway had apparently decided that Saturday wasn't difficult enough already and there was gridlock traffic, so eventually I ended up using the M6 Toll.

Twelve quid.

Twelve bloody quid.

There is something deeply offensive about paying £12 for the privilege of driving on a road because the free road has decided to stop functioning. I kept expecting somebody at the toll booth to hand me a small complimentary packet of crisps as compensation.

Still, we got home eventually and Sam was keen to try out his new baitcaster the following morning. This was rather encouraging because the last thing I wanted was for him to spend a load of money on a rod and reel and then leave it sitting in the corner looking decorative.

So Sunday morning saw us heading off to a new water for me this season. The river was low, clear and sluggish, which are three words that don't exactly fill you with confidence when you're hoping to catch a predator. Still, we gave it a go. We tried numerous lures, changed colours, changed sizes and generally went through enough tackle to make it look as though we'd been commissioned by a lure manufacturer.

The river looked absolutely beautiful though. Gin clear water, low levels and that sort of quiet Sunday morning atmosphere where you can convince yourself that the fish are definitely there and you're merely waiting for the right moment.

Eventually there was a sign of life and a reasonable pike took a Replicant lure. Suddenly everything changed because when you're lure fishing for pike and something actually grabs the lure, all the previous hours of fruitless casting are immediately forgiven. Unfortunately the pike didn't seem particularly interested in remaining attached to the lure. After the first proper pull off the rod, it simply came off.

There was no dramatic conclusion, no photograph and certainly no fish in the net. Just that horrible moment where you realise that the thing you've been waiting for all morning has happened and lasted approximately three seconds. The pike presumably swam away feeling rather pleased with itself. I imagine it is now telling the story to other pike about the day it encountered two anglers who spent several hours throwing things at it and then managed to lose it when it finally decided to cooperate.

Sam, meanwhile, seemed to take to the baitcaster remarkably quickly. He got the hang of casting it almost immediately, which was slightly irritating because I was expecting there to be a reasonable amount of shared suffering.

Instead, he looked as though he'd been using one for years. There is nothing quite like watching someone else pick up a piece of fishing tackle for the first time and immediately work it out while you're standing beside them wondering why yours has just produced a bird's nest.

For me, the baitcaster represented a considerably steeper learning curve. There are knobs everywhere. Little knobs, big knobs, magnetic knobs, braking adjustments and various other things that apparently need to be altered depending on the lure, the wind, the line and presumably the phase of the moon.

I spent a considerable amount of time fiddling with things. Every adjustment seemed to produce a different result and I was beginning to feel less like an angler and more like somebody repairing a malfunctioning washing machine.

Eventually you get a cast that works beautifully and think you've cracked it. Then you make another cast and the reel immediately explodes into a bird's nest that looks like you've been knitting with fishing line.

Still, Sam was getting on with it brilliantly. If he continues at this rate, he'll soon be teaching me how to use mine that is gathering dust, which would be quite humiliating but probably inevitable. After Sunday dinner I decided that I needed some peace and quiet, so I headed off to the syndicate stretch. There is something rather nice about going fishing after Sunday dinner, particularly when everybody else is occupied doing something that doesn't involve you.

The river was still low and clear and, once again, the fish appeared to have decided that today wasn't the day. I had a couple of small pulls, but nothing materialised into anything meaningful.

Sometimes you can spend hours fishing a swim knowing there is almost certainly a fish somewhere nearby, but getting it to actually do anything is another matter entirely. It's like knowing somebody is in the house because you can hear them moving around but they refuse to answer the door.

I stayed into dark anyway. There's always that thought that perhaps the fish will switch on as daylight disappears, and if you've already spent several hours sitting there, you might as well give yourself the opportunity to be disappointed in the darkness as well.

The beauty of fishing into dark is that everything becomes more mysterious. Every little pluck feels significant, every swirl could be a fish and every noise in the bushes becomes either an otter, a deer or something that is about to murder you.

Usually it's a leaf.

On this particular occasion I had my comfortable chair with me, complete with lumbar support. This is another sign that fishing has gradually changed over the years because once upon a time I would have happily sat on anything that vaguely resembled a chair.

Now I'm apparently looking for ergonomic support.

The lumbar support was actually very good. So good, in fact, that I began to wonder whether it was perhaps working a little too well. At some point during the evening I became aware that I had apparently drifted off. Not a full night's sleep obviously, but enough of a nodding session to make me question whether I was actually fishing or simply conducting a long-term experiment into the sleep-inducing qualities of riverside chairs.

The worst thing is that you wake up and immediately look at the rod as though you've been keeping a close eye on it. Nobody needs to know that you were asleep.

You look around, adjust the rod slightly and adopt the facial expression of somebody who has been intensely analysing the water for the last twenty minutes. Meanwhile, your chair is sitting there looking extremely guilty. There is something very peaceful about fishing into darkness though. Even when you're not catching, there's the sound of the river, the occasional movement in the margins and the feeling that you're temporarily removed from all the normal nonsense of everyday life.

And sometimes, apparently, the lumbar support removes you a little further than intended.

So the weekend produced one escaped pike, a new baitcaster, a signed book, another fishing beanie, some leads, several conversations with anglers I've watched on television and enough tackle browsing to make my bank account feel slightly nervous.

Sam seems to have rediscovered his interest in fishing, which is probably the biggest success of the whole weekend. If nothing else, we've now got somebody else in the house who can justify buying fishing tackle, which is an opportunity that absolutely must not be wasted.

The BIG Fish N Show was actually a very good day out. The weather could have been kinder, the M6 could have been less ridiculous and the M6 Toll could perhaps have been £12 cheaper, but I'd definitely go again next year. And if the show continues to grow, I expect the queues will get even longer, the tackle stands will get even bigger and the carp bedchairs will eventually become indistinguishable from actual beds.

At which point I may finally give in.

Because if I'm going to spend a few hours beside a low and clear river catching absolutely nothing, I might as well be comfortable.

In fact, if anybody knows where I can get one of those modern carp bedchairs with lumbar support, memory foam and a built-in cup holder, let me know.

I'll probably need somewhere to put the kettle while I have my afternoon nap.

Because clearly this is what fishing has become.

BIG fish, expensive tackle, baitcasters, celebrity anglers, motorway tolls and a comfortable chair from which to watch absolutely nothing happen.

And, if you're lucky, one pike that falls off.

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.55 (Big Barbel)

There are certain news stories that make you stop what you’re doing, read them again and wonder if someone has accidentally put the wrong location on the press release. Five Mexican men, a secret meth lab and remote farmland near Furnace End in Warwickshire meanwhile I’m sat here preparing to go barbel fishing on the Warwickshire Avon, which suddenly feels like a slightly more questionable evening activity than it did this morning. 

I had been looking forward to a peaceful few hours by the river, watching the light fade over the Avon while waiting for a chub or barbel to do something vaguely interesting. 

Now, having read about Furnace End, I’m wondering whether every unoccupied farm building in Warwickshire has a secret second purpose and whether I should be checking the postcode on my fishing ticket before setting off. 

The timing is particularly unfortunate because I’ll be fishing into dusk, which is normally one of my favourite times to be beside a river. The planes from the local airfield and wildlife quieten down apart from the resident barn owl, the river takes on that lovely evening glow and, if you’re lucky, a fish comes charging through the swim like it’s just remembered it left the oven on.

But suddenly every rustle in the hedge is going to sound suspicious. Normally I’d assume it was a rabbit, pheasant or someone else fishing illegally close enough to me to become personally irritating, but now I’ll be wondering whether I’ve stumbled across Warwickshire’s answer to Breaking Bad while trying to catch a fish.

The irony is that fishing in to dusk requires a certain amount of preparation. Rods, reels, leads, bait, landing net, unhooking mat, headtorch and enough other assorted fishing paraphernalia to make a casual observer wonder whether you’re actually going fishing or preparing to establish a small outdoor branch of Angling Direct.

I can imagine the conversation if the authorities happened to wander past. “What are you doing here?” they’d ask. “Barbel fishing,” I’d reply. “And what’s in those bags?” “Pellets.” A pause. “What sort?” “Halibut.” Another pause. “Right, carry on.”

The real problem is that fishermen already look slightly suspicious when sitting motionless beside a river after dark. Add a headtorch, a couple of bait tubs and an unhealthy interest in secluded stretches of countryside and suddenly you’re only one clipboard away from needing to explain yourself to several different government departments.

Still, there is one reassuring difference between me and the unfortunate occupants of the Furnace End operation. I’m hoping to produce a barbel, whereas apparently they were hoping to produce something rather less desirable. My only chemical reaction this evening should hopefully be the one that occurs when a strong Avon barbel picks up a pellet and converts my peaceful evening into several minutes of frantic rod-holding.

So off I’ll went, into the Warwickshire dusk, armed with fishing tackle and a slightly heightened awareness of remote farm buildings. If the fish were feeding, I’ll be perfectly happy; if they aren’t, I’ll probably pack up early rather than sit there wondering whether that distant generator is agricultural machinery or something that definitely isn’t mentioned in the Angling Trust rulebook. Because there’s nothing quite like a relaxing evening beside the river. Although after this week’s news, I might stick to the swims with good mobile phone reception. You know, just in case, don't want any agro now do we !!

I rocked up at the syndicate stretch at around 6.40pm, which, when you consider dusk was allegedly somewhere around 8.10pm, didn't leave me with an enormous amount of time to actually do any fishing. Still, this is the Warwickshire Avon and when it's low and clear like it is at the moment, there's absolutely no point rushing about like a caffeinated meerkat because nothing much tends to happen until the light starts disappearing.

I lobbed a couple of cricket-ball-sized balls of groundbait into the swim, each one liberally seasoned with a few freebie pellets, and then retired to the car to avoid the rain. At one point it was absolutely hammering down with such enthusiasm that I briefly contemplated the sort of sensible decision that normal people make, namely driving home, putting the kettle on and pretending I'd never been fishing.

Thankfully, after about ten minutes the biblical deluge subsided and I got the gear sorted out. The plan was a PVA bag of freebies, a large 15mm Robin Red pellet on the hair and the whole lot wrapped in a homemade paste which smelled strongly of spicy, savoury meat, or possibly the contents of a particularly questionable butcher's bin.

By about 7.30pm the rod was finally out, at which precise moment the heavens decided that my waterproof clothing needed a proper field test. Fortunately, the waterproof trousers and soft-shell jacket appeared to be doing their job, so I settled down beneath a very overcast, slightly peculiar-looking sky, with a decent breeze rattling through everything.

And despite the weather, it was actually rather pleasant. There's something about being sat beside a river in miserable conditions, with the rain in your face and everything smelling damp, that seems to amplify the senses, probably because you're concentrating very hard on not getting wet.

As darkness approached I was expecting the usual Avon nocturnal shenanigans to begin. The resident owl made an appearance and then disappeared off to conduct more important owl business, the bats milled around for a while before gradually thinning out, but the fish appeared to have collectively agreed that tonight was going to be a sponsored silence.

In fact, even 45 minutes after dusk it was still surprisingly light. I could probably have walked to the end of the field and back without a headtorch, although obviously I wasn't going anywhere because I'd imposed a strict 9.00pm curfew on myself and, unlike most of my fishing plans, this one appeared to have some vague connection with reality.

Then, approximately 30 seconds before my self-imposed bedtime, the rod absolutely detonated.

It was one of the most violent bites I've ever had, catching the baitrunner completely by surprise and sending me into action with all the grace and composure of a man who has just discovered he's left the oven on. The fish made an alarming amount of ground almost immediately and I could actually feel the line grating as it headed for somewhere considerably more solid than where I wanted it to be.

Initially I thought it might be a big chub, which would have been lovely, but as I kept the line tight and tried to get another angle on it, the fish eventually came out from the snag. Under the beam of the headtorch I finally got a proper look and thought, in the highly articulate manner fishermen adopt in moments of excitement: "Errrrrrrrrr... that's not a chub."

It was a big barbel.

At this point the peaceful evening descended into complete chaos. The fish was absolutely determined to return to its snag, I was equally determined that it wasn't going back there, and somewhere in the middle of this argument I managed to convince myself that I had everything completely under control.

I didn't.

There was a particularly hairy moment during the netting attempt when things went spectacularly wrong, the sort of moment where time slows down and you can see your carefully prepared fish of a lifetime swimming off into the darkness while your landing net is apparently working for the other side. Somehow, though, the fish remained attached and eventually I managed to get it safely into the net.

Result.

It was clearly a double, so I let the fish rest in the extended landing net while the C-shaped snag rest stood guard like some sort of aquatic security officer. I packed the car away, sorted myself out and then, with the adrenaline beginning to subside, finally got the fish onto the scales.

11lb 15oz.

Not quite twelve pounds, which is obviously a devastating blow to its self-esteem, but close enough to make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the grin that was spreading across my face.

A few trophy shots followed before I gave the fish another good rest and then watched it disappear back into its lair under the beam of the headtorch. And just like that, the syndicate stretch had once again produced one of its big residents, 30 seconds before I was due to pack up.

So there we have it: less than three hours of preparation, groundbait, pellets, paste, rain, bats, owls, darkness and absolutely nothing happening, followed by thirty seconds of complete mayhem and an 11lb 15oz barbel. Sometimes the river doesn't just test your patience; it waits until you're literally reaching for the car keys before reminding you who's actually in charge.

I drove home with a grin from ear to ear, which is generally considered a perfectly acceptable symptom of having just landed a cracking barbel. The 9.00pm curfew had been obeyed to the second, the fish had gone back safely, and once again the Warwickshire Avon had demonstrated that if you're prepared to sit there looking miserable for long enough, it may eventually reward you for your stupidity.

Warwickshire Avon - Thermometrographs and Thanatophilia

Well, a week off the booze thus far after August's excesses and I must admit, I'm already sleeping better. Which is probably a good thing, although I'm beginning to wonder whether sleep itself is the problem, because my subconscious appears to have developed a taste for the frankly disturbing.

There's an old rumour that eating cheese before bed gives you wild dreams, and as somebody who occasionally likes to experiment with lucid dreaming, I thought I'd put this ancient dairy folklore to the test yet another time. Cheese contains tryptophan, which the brain uses in all sorts of clever ways involving serotonin, sleep and dreaming, although quite why my brain decided to interpret this as an invitation to produce something involving necrophilia (yes really 💤🙈) is a question I'll leave to considerably more qualified people.

The culprit, on this occasion, was a rather innocent-looking chunk of Bleu d'Auvergne. I went to bed expecting perhaps a vivid dream involving a tropical island, a large barbel and possibly Scarlett Johansson if the subconscious was feeling generous, but instead it served up something so profoundly wrong that even I woke up thinking, "Blimey, steady on."

I'm not easily shocked, as you may have gathered, but even I felt that Bleu d'Auvergne had crossed a line. So it's back to Stilton for me, because clearly the French cannot be trusted with the delicate workings of the English subconscious.

Perhaps I've simply trained my brain over the years, courtesy of Albert Hofmann and his rather more adventurous contribution to human consciousness. Whatever the explanation, I thought the sensible thing was to give the whole bizarre psychological experiment a rest and find myself a distraction.

And what better distraction is there than fishing? Fishing has the enormous advantage that, once you're beside the river, your brain has very little opportunity to worry about anything other than where the fish might be and whether you've got enough bait, which in my case is particularly useful because I can barely think about two things simultaneously without something going catastrophically wrong.

I had an hour to spare after work before the demands of domestic diary-making called me back to civilisation, so I decided on a quick visit to one of my local smash-and-grab spots. I'm lucky in that it's virtually on the way home from work, meaning I can get my fishing fix without requiring the logistical planning normally associated with an Arctic expedition.

When I say minimal gear, I really do mean minimal gear. Rod, reel, size 6 hook and that's about it; if I need anything else, I've clearly misunderstood the assignment. This little stretch is one I know reasonably well, particularly at the beginning of the season when the chub have a habit of hanging around. I'd visited before my holiday, though, and the chub had apparently decided that my company was beneath them and relocated themselves into the pool upstream.

Unfortunately, that particular pool is about as accessible as the vault at Fort Knox. 

You could probably reach it in waders up to your armpits ,but getting a decent chub out once hooked would involve the sort of aquatic gymnastics for which I'm neither sufficiently young nor sufficiently enthusiastic. Still, there was a bit more water in the river now, and that can make all the difference. So I thought I'd have another go and see whether the chub had returned or whether they'd taken permanent residence somewhere with better security.

I started with surface bread, which is always a pleasing way to fish because it makes you feel slightly like a Victorian gentleman feeding ducks, only with considerably more concentration and a hook concealed somewhere in the bakery department. The trouble with chub is that they know exactly what bread is, and they also know exactly what a hook is, which makes them rather less cooperative than the pigeons.

Those pieces of bread were going down completely unhindered, which suggested one of two things: either the chub weren’t in residence, or they were there but had collectively decided to observe a strict carbohydrate-free diet. Then, right at the very tail end of the swim, there was a swirl  not exactly a biblical revelation, but certainly enough of a fish showing to make me wonder whether I’d been prematurely writing the swim off.

The problem was that getting a fish out of there would have been difficult, to put it mildly, with enough snags lurking about to make the swim look less like a fishing opportunity and more like an obstacle course designed by someone who genuinely disliked anglers. Still, I bookmarked it mentally, because if there is one thing fishing teaches you, it is that the places you convince yourself are impossible are invariably the places you spend the next six months thinking about.

So I made my way downstream to a few swims that normally produce fish, although with the extra water on, the river had a bit more flow and those little areas where the chub usually hang about were conspicuously devoid of chub. I peered into likely spots, stared into dark corners, and generally behaved like a man who had misplaced something expensive, despite the fact that I was actually looking for a fish that had absolutely no obligation whatsoever to be there.

Then, just to add a touch of rural theatre to proceedings, a horse decided to follow me down towards the bridge swim. I was half expecting it to ask whether I’d seen any chub, but instead it got knee-deep into the water and began enthusiastically harvesting the rich pickings from the reeds and bullrushes downstream, apparently having worked out the fishing wasn’t going particularly well and deciding to get on with something productive.

I did manage a chublet, which after four or five tentative nudges at the bread finally decided that one more go was going to be its downfall. Unfortunately for it, this time it found a hook rather than the usual free lunch, although it was hardly the stamp of fish I had travelled through the countryside expecting to meet.

It was, however, perfectly respectable, and after a brief encounter I returned it to its watery abode, where I assume it immediately went back to telling its mates about the terrifying near-death experience involving a suspiciously fluffy piece of bread. I meanwhile stood there wondering whether this was genuinely how the session was going to end, with my fishing ambitions reduced from “proper chub” to “something that could probably fit through a letterbox”.

With my tail firmly between my legs, I decided on one final attempt in the first swim, because apparently disappointment makes you more determined rather than more sensible. This time I concentrated on the snag pit away from the main river, where there was a much slower piece of water, which was encouraging, although the word “snags” was doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in that description.

I flicked a few pieces of crust onto the surface and, wearing the polarised sunglasses that make every angler feel briefly like Jacques Cousteau, I could see the silhouettes of several chub milling around below. 

They were definitely there, which was encouraging, although their attitude towards my carefully presented floating bread was roughly equivalent to mine when someone offers me a spotted dick with gloopy cold custard.

They simply weren’t interested in taking it off the surface, so I decided to change tactics. 

Now, I assume chub are rather like us although hopefully with fewer problems concerning council tax and the price of petrol in that they possess both animal instinct and a more rational side capable of assessing whether something looks suspicious.

On one side are our animal instincts, developed over millions of years of evolution and designed to keep us alive, while on the other sits the rational brain, constantly calculating, cogitating and occasionally wondering why on earth we thought buying another fishing rod was a sensible financial decision. The chub, presumably, had arrived at the conclusion that floating bread was suspicious, but perhaps had yet to develop the ability to question its own existence, mortgage rates or whether it had chosen the correct swim in life.

So a piece of bread went onto the hook, dipped into the water and was squeezed, and squeezed again, until it became something resembling a small soggy dumpling with a criminal record. This time it was slow sinking, and after a strategic and, I thought, rather magnificent underarm flick, I watched it disappear underneath the raft while using my forefinger to feel the line.

About ten seconds passed, during which I became increasingly convinced that absolutely nothing was happening and that I had once again managed to turn a straightforward fishing exercise into an unnecessarily complicated experiment in disappointment. Then I felt the line tighten, struck, and immediately discovered that the fish at the other end had considerably more enthusiasm for the proceedings than I did.

Now, you only had to look at the swim to realise that this wasn’t going to be a polite little fight conducted in open water with the fish eventually swimming obligingly into the net. This was going to be carnage, and with a tippy barbel rod in my hands I was going to have to bully the fish away from every branch, root, twig and other item of aquatic furniture it had thoughtfully positioned itself beside.

“YOU HEATHEN, MICK,” I could almost hear the traditionalists shouting from the bankside hedges, horrified that someone had dared use a tippy barbel rod for a chub. But at this point I wasn’t particularly interested in conforming to angling etiquette, because etiquette is generally of limited use when a decent chub is attempting to introduce itself to a snag at high speed.

The ensuing battle would probably have earned an audition for Best Fighting Chub on Britain’s Got Talent, assuming there is a category for fish that spend several minutes trying to make an angler question every decision that led them to that particular stretch of river. Eventually, however, it gave up, rolled over and seemed to say, “Please net me, I’ve had enough of this,” which was an offer I was more than happy to accept.

So I did exactly that, because there are some things you simply don’t argue with when fishing decent fish, snag-infested swims and the sudden appearance of a net in front of a chub that has just spent several minutes trying to dismantle your tackle. Things you do to catch fish, eh?

And there it was, a proper chub, and suddenly the earlier chublet seemed less like a disappointing consolation prize and more like an important piece of narrative development. From a little chublet nibbling at bread to a proper chub trying to rearrange the underwater architecture, the session had somehow managed to redeem itself.

It had taken little more than an hour, but that was all the fishing fix required, really. No epic twelve-hour campaign, no bivvy, no alarms screaming through the night and certainly no need to explain to anyone why you have spent half a day sitting beside a river staring at a piece of bread.

Just a river, a few pieces of crust, a horse, a handful of suspicious chub and one fish that eventually decided to cooperate after being subjected to what was, frankly, an unnecessarily stressful audition for Britain's Got Talent. Sometimes that’s all you need, well maybe a tussle with Sofía Vergara might be nice, a memorable fish, a ridiculous little adventure and enough material to convince yourself that the next session will obviously be even better.