Warwickshire Avon - Salt-Guns and Salamandroids

Well, if the Met Office are to be believed, Stratford-upon-Avon could be nudging 40 degrees this week. Forty! That's not weather for Warwickshire; that's weather for lizards, tourists with regrettable sunburn, and blokes who insist on wearing socks with sandals. I spent most of the morning wondering whether to fill the bird bath or simply climb into it myself.

The talk everywhere seems to be air-conditioning. A few years ago, buying an air-conditioning unit in Britain felt about as necessary as owning a snowplough in the Sahara. Now I'm finding myself browsing appliance websites with the same urgency normally reserved for bait orders and discounted fishing tackle. The nation's gone from discussing drizzle to comparing BTU ratings in the space of a fortnight.

As for the fishing, common sense may have to prevail. When the river feels more like the warm shallow seas of Ayia Napa than a flowing watercourse, it's hard to justify chasing barbel around. They fight like demons at the best of times, and in these conditions with lower oxygen levels you can't help but wonder who's really enjoying the experience. Probably not the fish. Probably not the angler either once he's melted into a puddle on the riverbank.

So, for now, the rods may remain in the garage after this session while I seek refuge in the shade, clutching a cold drink and keeping one eye on the thermometer. If this carries on much longer, Shakespeare's birthplace will need palm trees, and I'll need that air-conditioning unit after all.

Now ordinarily, I’m a man of absolute peace. Give me a lukewarm flask of tea, a pack of maggots that are crawling suspiciously faster than they should, and a quiet swim on the Warwickshire Avon, and I am content. But during a recent heatwave session on a sneaky stretch of the canal, I wasn’t just doing battle with the local zander. I was the primary target for a merciless, bloodthirsty squadron of Warwickshire mosquitoes. 

I’m talking about the kind of airborne pests that laugh at insect repellent. After stopping counting at about 35 bites, I sat on my chair, scratching like a dog with fleas, and thought: there has to be a mechanical solution to this biological warfare. Enter an engineer mate of mine. Engineers don’t look at bugs the way normal people do. They don’t see an annoyance; they see a ballistics deficit.

“Mick,” he said, eyes gleaming with the manic energy of a man who spends his lunch breaks analysing stress-strain curves. “You need a laser guided Bug-A-Salt 3.0. It leverages compressed spring kinetics to atomise standard sodium chloride crystals. It’s pure mechanical genius.” Naturally, I was sceptical. As an angler, I’m used to precision mechanics the buttery click of a high-end centrepin reel, the perfect taper of a carbon Avon rod.

But watching an engineer examine this plastic fly-swatter alternative is a different sort of entertainment altogether. 

When it turned up a few days later I was practically drooling over the tolerances of the pump-action mechanism and the fluid dynamics of the salt hopper.

“Look at the safety cross-bolt engagement,! Look at the elevation on the Patridge sight!”

Then a massive horsefly landed squarely on my bait box, eyeing up my red maggots like a hungry Brummie at a kebab van. 

I racked the pump a satisfying clack-clack that felt like closing the breech on an expensive piece of kit sighted down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

Pfft!

No toxic spray. No chemical stink to ruin my hookbaits. Just a tiny puff of table salt and one very neutralised horsefly dropped onto the towpath without a single splatter.

Clean execution.

If I can’t bait-boat my way out of a mosquito frenzy, at least I can anti-air weapon my way through it. It leaves a pinch of salt on the grass, but frankly, if a few grains land in the water, I’ll just call it pre-baiting for the next incoming shoal. I might even try loading it with fine garlic salt next time give the canal roach a bit of seasoning before they even see the hook.

Tight lines, and keep your hopper dry.

Anyway over a week now into the river season and, as is traditional, I found myself undertaking what sounded far grander than it actually was: a reconnaissance mission. In reality this involved driving around Warwickshire in a Suzuki Jimny looking for somewhere nice to sit and occasionally throw bits of fish food into a river.

This new venue (to me)  in question came recommended by a blog reader whom I've bumped into on a couple of occasions. Hi Baz !!

This is hardly surprising as we both seem to suffer from the same affliction: an overwhelming desire to avoid other anglers. 

If there were a syndicate called "The Society for the Preservation of Peace, Quiet and Not Being Bothered" we'd probably both be committee members.

The stretch itself ticked all the important boxes. It was less than nine miles away, fifteen minutes from home and involved a route consisting mainly of country lanes narrow enough to make you question whether modern vehicles were a mistake and be thankful the Jimny is unconventional . 

Most importantly, it offered that rare combination of solitude, wildlife and the realistic possibility of not hearing somebody else's bite alarm rendition of a submarine emergency.

What had really piqued my interest though was the untapped zander potential. The thought of improving my personal best had lodged itself firmly in my mind. This is dangerous because anglers are remarkably skilled at convincing themselves that fish they've never seen definitely exist and are probably enormous.

Google Maps only tells you so much, but what I could see looked promising. Better still, the entire 600-metre stretch was accessible by vehicle. The little Jimny would be in its natural habitat. Some people buy four-wheel drives to conquer mountain ranges. Mine spends most of its time transporting pellets, flasks and unrealistic expectations, but unlike many 4x4 users these days, it often does what it is designed to do.

Being able to park virtually on top of the swim is a massive advantage for short sessions. The older I get, the more I appreciate a fishing venue where the walk from car to river doesn't require expedition supplies, sherpas and a farewell letter to loved ones.

There was no rush. Dusk wasn't until after 10.00pm and with the heat wave kicking in soon about the best opportunity I had all week for a dangle, leaving plenty of time for a proper look around. I checked the water temperature which was 23 degrees 😯 I wandered from swim to swim, peering into the water with all the confidence of a man who was largely making things up as he went along. Every crease looked fishy. Every glide looked fishy. Every snag looked fishy. In fact everything looked fishy, which was fortunate considering it was a river.

I scanned the deeper in a few areas and it's a fairy uniform depth with lots of character, lily pads and weed in lots of area but clean gravel also which was nice to see.

Eventually I settled on a swim that looked suitably fishy. I can't adequately define what "fish" means but experienced anglers will understand. It's a bit like house hunting. You walk in, look around and immediately decide whether you'd live there despite having absolutely no logical basis for the conclusion. Well, ok I confess I had a few swims to try from Baz. 

Tactics were kept pleasingly simple. A concentrated patch of bait delivered via a PVA bag, some homemade paste making its appearance again and, on the hair, an ever-reliable Robin Red pellet. It had served me faithfully last season and I see no reason to abandon a successful partnership. Unlike several football managers, the pellet has never let me down.

To get things started I introduced a bait dropper full of hemp and small pellets before allowing the swim to rest. This sounds wonderfully tactical and scientific. In truth it mainly gave me an excuse to sit down, drink cold water and stare at the river whilst pretending important things were happening beneath the surface.

The jungle drums on the WBAS WhatsApp group had been beating loudly since the start of the season. Rumours suggested the barbel were preoccupied with spawning activities when the drawbridge came up on the 16th and therefore maybe less interested in my carefully prepared offerings. They may well have more pressing matters on their minds than helping me improve my catch reports, but to be honest with the water temp as it is, they can wait for a while. 

It's difficult to compete with romance.

Still, I remained optimistic. If sure the barbel still could well be engaged in their annual bout of bukkake despite waiting over a week since they had been spotted on various rivers, that or chilling in the weirs because of the heat, perhaps a bream might wander past or a nice bream, Chub are wonderfully accommodating creatures. While barbel often behave like celebrities surrounded by security staff, chub are more akin to that bloke in the pub who'll happily stop for a chat with anyone.

Anyway as the evening settled and the shadows lengthened, I sat quietly beside a stretch of river I'd never fished before. Not that much traffic noise. No crowds. No distractions. Just birdsong, flowing water and the comforting knowledge that somewhere beneath the surface there might be a specimen fish, absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Which, when you think about it, is one of the many reasons fishing remains such a splendidly ridiculous pastime.

With the heat of the day finally ebbing away, it was surprising just how quickly the water temperature dropped. Over a couple of hours it shed more than two degrees, helped no doubt by the steady rain that accompanied the first part of the session. Despite looking promising, very little happened early on and the river remained stubbornly quiet.

Things livened up when the bats emerged. For the best part of half an hour they seemed intent on colliding with the line, rattling the rod tip often enough to keep me guessing. More than once the tip flicked round in a way that would have convinced anyone a fish was attached. Eventually dusk deepened and the bats moved elsewhere, leaving the river to settle once more.

Not long after came a proper whack on the rod. The tip sprang into life with a series of sharp knocks, though nothing really committed itself. A strike connected with something, but the culprit proved to be a tiny chublet whose ambition far outweighed its size. It was quickly swung to hand and admired before being returned.

Another fifteen minutes passed without further action, so that was that. Even so, the stretch looks full of promise, particularly for predators, and I'm keen to spend more time exploring it when conditions improve. For now, with the heatwave set to tighten its grip again, it's a case of sitting it out and looking ahead to a cooler weekend.

Warwickshire Avon - Piscatoriality and Perplexification

Friday afternoon once work had finished began in thoroughly civilised fashion. A couple of drinks in the sunshine with my good friend Beth beside a rather pleasant stretch of the River Leam which coincidently just so happen to be part of the WBAS portfolio. 

It was all terribly sophisticated and cultured. Unfortunately, I had already made the fatal mistake of thinking about fishing.

Before Beth arrived, I had carefully introduced a few pieces of bread into the pool from the old bridge. At first the chub treated the offerings with the suspicion normally reserved for unsolicited emails and politicians. Then, gradually, they gained confidence. One appeared. Then another. Before long they were crashing the surface like aquatic Labradors being fed sausage rolls.

Naturally, I concluded that catching one later would be easier than falling downstairs.

After our farewell and promises to do it again soon, I returned to find my waiting audience had undergone a complete personality transplant. The same fish that had been enthusiastically inhaling bread now regarded my hookbait with profound philosophical disapproval.

Eventually I managed to persuade one small chub of around two pounds to make a mistake. For a few glorious moments I was connected. Then the fish headed purposefully toward a reed bed, the hook pulled, and my career entered another brief but memorable decline.

The remarkable thing was what happened next.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The chub vanished so completely that I began to suspect they had emigrated. I tried another swim and achieved precisely the same result, which is to say none whatsoever.

With my confidence somewhere near my bootlaces, I drove to the Warwickshire Avon to revisit the swims where only a few days earlier I had caught seven chub off the surface. Surely familiarity would breed success.

It didn't.

The river looked identical.

The swims looked identical.

I looked identical.

The fish, however, had clearly attended a different meeting and failed to inform me.

Still, the day improved considerably when Steve and I headed to vibrant Kings Heath to see Neil Barnes from Leftfield at the Hare and Hounds. Prior to this we visited Eat Vietnam in Stirchley, which I can report was very good indeed. Whether it was authentically Vietnamese or a cheerful act of culinary improvisation mattered not a jot. The food was excellent, the service first class and the bill failed to induce cardiac arrest.

Saturday dawned with the prospect of more fishing. Sensibly, I ignored this possibility for several hours and put my feet up.

Now there are some mornings when a man awakens full of purpose, determination and piscatorial optimism, only to discover that the reality of the situation bears all the hallmarks of a badly organised military campaign led by somebody who once got lost in a telephone box. This particular morning fell neatly into that category. 

Having decided to wander down to the syndicate stretch for a spot of trotting, partly to see if I could persuade a few obliging fish to sample my offerings and partly to investigate whether any larger residents were loitering suspiciously in a couple of likely swims, I set off with the enthusiasm of a man who had entirely forgotten how uncomfortable chest waders can become when exposed to direct sunlight. 

The other day I had purchased two pints of bronze maggots from Angling Direct in Coventry, a transaction which at the time appeared perfectly sensible. Unfortunately, by the following day these industrious little creatures had apparently reached the point in their careers where they felt promotion to caster status was overdue. 

Even though they had been carefully stored in the fridge, a fair number had already begun the transformation. Whether they had been born ambitious or simply sold to me in a state of advanced maturity remains uncertain, but it was clear they needed using before they collectively applied for retirement.

Upon arrival I made my way to the swim I had fished a few days earlier. Now, anglers are frequently guilty of assuming that because a swim produced fish once, it will continue doing so indefinitely, rather like expecting a fruit machine to pay out every time simply because it did so last Thursday. Sadly, the fish had not been consulted regarding my plans. 

The swim appeared strangely lifeless and the better stamp of fish that had been present previously seemed to have emigrated, perhaps in search of cooler water, superior maggots or simply to avoid my company. Nevertheless, I persevered for a while, feeding carefully and watching the float with increasing intensity.

The fish that did appear were small, nervous and possessed the irritating habit of nibbling at the bait with all the commitment of a politician answering a difficult question. Matters were not helped by the fact that I was standing in full sunshine wearing enough rubber to survive an Arctic expedition. Before long I was generating sufficient internal heat to power a small market town.

Recognising that there are limits to human endurance, particularly when one's lower half has become a portable sauna, I eventually staggered ashore and removed the waders. This manoeuvre was achieved with all the dignity of a man attempting to escape from an oversized rubber octopus. Several minutes later, dressed in a more suitable fashion and considerably less likely to suffer spontaneous combustion, I relocated to another swim. 

Here things improved immediately. The float began dipping with reassuring regularity and fish started coming to hand. They were not monsters by any stretch of the imagination, but under the prevailing conditions I was hardly in a position to be choosy.  

The river at present resembles a giant bottle of mineral water. It is low, crystal clear and provides fish with the sort of visibility normally enjoyed only by birds of prey.

Under such circumstances, simply catching consistently feels like a notable achievement rather than a routine expectation.

For the next couple of hours I settled into a pleasant rhythm. Cast, feed, trot, strike, unhook, repeat. 

The fish came steadily enough and were undeniably welcome, but unfortunately they all appeared to be members of the same exclusive weight category, namely "small". 

Every time the float disappeared I entertained visions of a decent chub having made a catastrophic error of judgement. 

Every strike was accompanied by a brief surge of hope followed almost immediately by the unmistakable wriggling of something weighing approximately the same as a packet of crisps. 

One fish of perhaps five ounces briefly threatened to become fish of the day, which tells you everything you need to know about proceedings. Had a seven-ounce specimen appeared, there would probably have been speeches and a commemorative plaque erected on the riverbank.

As the afternoon progressed I continued feeding the swims I had earmarked for larger fish. The theory was straightforward enough. Introduce a little bait, encourage confidence, and perhaps return later to find a heavyweight resident waiting patiently for my arrival. The practice, however, relied heavily upon fish behaving in a cooperative manner. 

Experience has taught me that large fish rarely feel obliged to participate in plans devised by anglers. They have spent years avoiding herons, cormorants, otters and every conceivable form of angling ingenuity. Consequently, they are unlikely to throw caution aside simply because somebody has scattered a few handfuls of maggots into the river. Still, hope springs eternal. Angling without optimism is rather like going to a restaurant and ordering disappointment for starters.

Eventually I was forced to concede that the anticipated giant chub had either declined my invitation or was observing events from a safe distance while laughing quietly behind a submerged tree root. After a respectable couple of hours the tally consisted entirely of modest fish and no surprises whatsoever. Not that I was particularly upset. 

There are days when simply being beside a river is reward enough. The kingfishers continue their aerial patrols, dragonflies buzz about with all the urgency of tiny helicopters, and the water slips past with that hypnotic murmur capable of convincing an angler that sitting in one place for three hours constitutes productive activity. In truth, even a poor day's fishing often beats most alternative forms of recreation, especially those involving lawnmowers, supermarkets or DIY.

Looking ahead, the weather forecast promises yet another heatwave from Tuesday onwards, with temperatures climbing into the mid-thirties. This prospect fills me with mixed emotions. On one hand, such temperatures make daytime fishing about as appealing as spending an afternoon inside a tumble dryer. 

On the other hand, they create excellent opportunities for evening sessions. There is something undeniably magical about fishing into dusk and darkness when the worst of the heat has finally retreated. The river seems to relax, the shadows lengthen, and the larger fish often begin to move with considerably more confidence. 

Better still, it provides an entirely legitimate excuse to escape the house, which by that stage usually resembles a slow-cooker with furniture. Whilst sensible people will no doubt be sitting indoors complaining about the heat, I fully expect to be standing beside the river, surrounded by midges, losing tackle in the dark and convincing myself that the next bite will be from the fish of a lifetime. Some habits, after all, are impossible to cure.

Warwickshire Avon - Trots and Transtubstantiationalists (Barbel content)

Now there are wellness retreats costing thousands of pounds where earnest people sit cross-legged beside scented candles attempting to discover inner peace. Personally, I prefer a stick float, a pint of maggots, and a slightly damp meadow somewhere along an English river. The beauty of trotting a float is that absolutely nothing much happens. 

In modern life, this is a rare luxury. Emails don't trot downstream. Meetings don't trot downstream. Utility bills certainly don't trot downstream. A stick float, however, drifts away with the current carrying all worldly concerns towards the next county.

The process is gloriously simple. Cast upstream, mend the line, watch the float. Repeat until tea time or darkness, whichever arrives first. It is difficult to feel stressed when concentrating on a tiny painted tip wobbling through a crease beneath an overhanging willow. 

Summer is the finest season for it. The river shrinks into polite proportions, dragonflies patrol like miniature helicopters, and every cow in the county appears determined to supervise proceedings from the opposite bank. The scent of warm grass drifts through the air while swallows skim the surface collecting insects with outrageous efficiency.

Then there are the fish. Most of them are not famous. The average trotting session produces a cast of modest performers. Dace arrive in cheerful shoals. Small chub dash about with the confidence of fish three times their size. Roach gleam briefly in the sunshine before returning to their watery affairs.

Yet every run through contains possibility.

That is the great secret.

The next trot might produce exactly the same four-ounce dace as the previous twenty-five trots. Or it might produce something rather more substantial. A proper chub could emerge from beneath the far-bank nettles. A surprise barbel may lumber into the swim. Occasionally the float vanishes with such determination that one's heart immediately attempts to leave via the throat.

This possibility transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

For hours nothing remarkable occurs. Then suddenly something remarkable occurs.

Life, if we're honest, works in much the same way.

The float itself becomes a companion. After several hours together you begin to recognise its habits. You know how it behaves in the fast water, how it hesitates over gravel, how it nods politely through the deeper glide. You watch it with the affection usually reserved for elderly Labradors and reliable kettles. Lunch tastes better by a river. 

Nobody knows why. A slightly squashed cheese sandwich consumed on a grassy bank somehow rivals restaurant cuisine. The tea from a flask acquires medicinal properties. Even a biscuit retrieved from the bottom of a tackle bag seems entirely acceptable.

Of course, there are occasional setbacks.

A tree may intercept a cast despite standing in exactly the same place all morning. A swan may decide your swim is ideal for a lengthy inspection. A cow may stare at you continuously for three hours, apparently attempting to solve a complex mathematical problem involving anglers.

These things merely add character.

By the end of the day the catch may amount to a dozen small fish and one respectable specimen. Yet the real harvest is something less tangible. The shoulders relax. The mind quietens. The endless chatter of modern life fades into the background hum of flowing water.

You leave the river convinced that next time the big one will certainly arrive.

It probably won't.

But then again, it might.

And that possibility is enough to send a stick float trotting downstream all over again. 

Now there comes a point in every angler's life when he stops listening to experts and starts listening to his own aches and pains. For me, that moment arrived when I could no longer see a No.8 shot without assistance from modern science. Once upon a time I happily copied complicated shotting patterns from magazines. The diagrams looked less like fishing tackle and more like blueprints for a suspension bridge.

Nowadays I look at tiny shot with deep suspicion. If I can't see it without squinting, there's a fair chance it isn't going on my line. My answer is simple. A small stick float, a 1-gram olivette and a couple of float stops solve most of life's problems. The olivette sits neatly where I want it. It doesn't slide about, it doesn't tangle and it doesn't require the eyesight of a peregrine falcon to install.

Being a design engineer, I like things that are tidy. If a component stays where it should and performs its function properly, I'm generally happy. This is why shirt-button shotting patterns make me slightly uncomfortable. I fully accept that they work brilliantly, but my engineering brain starts asking awkward questions. Every pinched shot looks like another potential weak point. While other anglers are catching fish, I'm conducting an imaginary failure analysis.

The experts, of course, know better than I do. That's why they write books and articles while I spend half my time looking for things I've dropped in the grass. John Allerton back in the day could probably glance at a swim and instantly know the perfect shotting arrangement. I glance at a swim and wonder whether I packed enough biscuits. The fish themselves seem wonderfully unconcerned. They have never once asked for a detailed breakdown of my shotting pattern.

A dace has never refused my bait because it disapproved of my loading arrangement. Nor has a chub suggested improvements to the presentation. So I'll stick with my olivette system. It suits my eyesight, suits my temperament and keeps the whole rig refreshingly simple.

Will it catch every fish in the river? Probably not. Then again, neither will I.

What it does provide is confidence. And confidence catches far more fish than a packet of microscopic shot I can't actually see, anyway enough of this nonsense I'm down the syndicate stretch with some maggots to drown I better get fishing without the waffle. 

Now there are fishing sessions, and then there are fishing sessions. This one started with me splashing about knee-deep in a swim kindly prepared by fellow syndicate member George, who had clearly decided that if I wanted fish, I ought to work for them first. Waders on, dignity off, and into the river I went. The swim itself was a masterpiece of inconvenience. 

Reeds lurked everywhere, seemingly with a personal grudge against floats. Every cast felt like threading a needle whilst riding a bicycle. Thankfully, an olivette down the line allowed the rig to slip free often enough to keep me from launching the rod into the nearest hedge.

The fish, however, were in a cooperative mood. Maggots rained in and dace, roach and the occasional ambitious chublet queued up as if tickets were being handed out. 

Bites arrived in manic bursts before vanishing completely, only to return twenty minutes later as though they'd all gone for a committee meeting.

At one point I connected with something considerably larger. Unfortunately, the fish had clearly read a different script. It headed for some tree roots to my left with alarming purpose. I attempted to stop it. The fish disagreed. The hook pulled and I was left staring at the water whilst inventing several new theories about what it might have been. 

The swim did at least provide shelter from the blazing sun. While sensible people were roasting elsewhere, I was comfortably hidden away, looking every bit like a riverbank hermit who'd lost track of both time and personal hygiene.

By half past nine I packed away and prepared to head home. The session had been enjoyable enough and common sense suggested calling it a day. Fortunately, common sense has never played a major role in my fishing. With dusk approaching, I wandered into another swim where Sean had thoughtfully trimmed back some branches. 

A few robin red pellets were dispatched alongside a PVA bag with freebies, with a 15mm robin red with a subtle paste wrap on an hair, and within fifteen minutes the rod erupted in a full-scale meltdown. The fish had practically hooked itself and was heading off with my tackle at alarming speed.

 For a brief moment I felt in control. Then the fish found a snag. The snag found the fish. I found despair. Despite briefly feeling the fish still attached, the inevitable happened and everything went solid. 

Game over. At that point many anglers would have gone home. I nearly joined them. The car was parked nearby. The evening was fading. The fishing gods had apparently spoken. Then again, they often mumble, so I decided to ignore them and cast out once more, this time well away from the snag.

The evening settled into one of those magical river moments where everything feels possible. 

Birds chirped, the river glided past and I began mentally rehearsing my drive home. Naturally, that was the exact moment the rod tip gave two unmistakable bangs before wrenching round with authority.

This was no chub.

This was a barbel.

The fish charged off on three powerful runs, each one reminding me that barbel possess approximately twice the horsepower nature intended. 

Eventually it surfaced and immediately my heart rate doubled. It was a proper fish. Seeing the landing net, it decided one final escape attempt was necessary and tore off again.

Thankfully, after that last effort the fish seemed to accept that negotiations were over. Moments later it slipped over the net cord and into the mesh.

What a fish.

After resting it in the net, I convinced myself it might scrape double figures. Anglers are optimistic creatures by nature. The scales eventually settled at 9lb 8oz. Not quite the magical ten, but a cracking opening-season barbel by any sensible measure. The funniest part? Three syndicate members had been there the previous evening targeting bigger fish at dusk and all blanked. Meanwhile I was halfway to the car before changing my mind and stumbling into success.

As ever, fishing remains the only pastime where poor decision-making can occasionally be rewarded with a personal triumph. Had I gone home when common sense suggested, I'd have missed the fish of the session. Sometimes it really is a case of right place, right time and just enough stubbornness to stay for one last cast.