Warwickshire Avon - Blue Famines and Blennophobia

Now Stilton producers have moved to reassure enough of the blue cheese will be available for the “hugely important” Christmas sales period.

You see despite warnings in a recent Sunday Times report that pandemic-linked production shortages could lead to a “blue famine”, the Stilton Cheese Makers Association stressed there would be enough product on shelf to meet demand. 

The report suggested some retailers were anticipating having to ration out stilton due to production stoppages this year.

Really ? it's one of the main ingredients in my cheesepaste, although to be fair this batch will last me a while, although I need to keep ones eyes on things, because I did like to make another batch this time of year, get ahead of the game and all that. 

Paxton and Whitfield are my default supplier, because their stilton is so darn good. So so creamy and the stuff you get in the supermarket nothing like a half decent stilton. 

It's like you can taste the care taken in its making in every bite, a glass or port or two sipped to accompany one of England's finest exports. Heck those small pleasure in life need to grasped at every opportunity these days. 

Now talking about being ahead of the game these chub the other evening really were on the cheesepaste. In that short two and a bit hour session despite catching 4 fish and a one of them over 5lb I missed quite a few bites too.

These were proper no messing pull rounds of the quiver tip where I struck in to nothing and the crafty chub had pulled the paste completely away from the cage, mugged off, yeap most definitely.  

 I fished a few swims in that short session settled in to a swim where the fish were confident to be out in open water once dusk had been and gone.

So I was back to try and find the glove I misplaced, but not only that I was back with a rig change.

You see we all know that hair rig for chub are not a brilliant idea because of the way the nibblers feed. So I retied a hooklength with the cage tighter to the shank of the hook. The hook would then be 'part' of the paste offering rather than be independent of it. 

Again another short after work (Still WFH 😕) session but I was hoping this small change would bank me another nice fish. 

As I said before ones target now is a Warwickshire Avon 6lber which I know do exist because I've seen them. 

This is a good a place as any to snare a good'un, and it helps I can fish in to dark, heck the whole night if I wanted to, no queuing for Primark to be seen here. I've been using these 'Depth Bombs' I designed for a while now and they really have been a great little design of mine if I say so myself.

I've not even tired the others I've knocked up either, these have worked so well. Ok a gluttonous chub can remove it sometime but remain unhindered the paste grips really well and stays on just as well or even better than the other offerings on the market. 

I though the 3D printed material might not be up for submerging but thus far for some sessions I've used it session after session with no degradation of the part whatsoever.  The paste as well sticks to the protrusions like poop to a blanket. 

Anyway to the session, I found the glove pretty quick which was a positive start, but then as I was setting up the rod and rod rest I turned around to see a huge wake and the head of the resident Otter clean out the water. He was working itself downstream and popped up a couple of times during my time bankside.

In complete contrast to the session here a couple of days ago I was biteless after nearly 2 hours, not even a pull, a nibble or an enquiry. I felt much milder despite the mercury level and gloves were not needed. The river was on the up as well with rain throughout the day and I just wasn't feeling it. Once the rain picked up and I wasn't exactly geared up for it, I decided to cut my losses and cut the trip out a little short. 

Still it was nice to be out however with more rain on the way I fancy something different and I might give the canal a go for Zander and if the weather is kind take Sam to the gonk swim as I've some maggots to use up. 

Fishing can bite you in the backside sometimes especially when you have such high expectations, the battery's recharged though and I bet I've seen more otters in the wild this year than the whole of the Countryfile team combined. Ellie Harrison if you see this and fancy getting a one up on your workmates I'm your man.