Piscatorial Quagswagging

...the diary of a specialist angler in around the Warwickshire Avon and its tributaries.

Wednesday 10 February 2021

Warwickshire Avon - Polymelia and Predestinarianism

I'm sure I spotted some of the cardboard cut-outs at Old Trafford leaving before full-time at the painfully boring Manchester United verses West Ham FA cup match. 

It was shown live on terrestrial TV by Lineker's wallet fillers, ok be fair, I'm not a massive football fan even though I can appreciate the skill shown by some of the players, but my God, what's happened to the game I used to enjoy watching.

The problem is without any crowds though, naturally football has lost much of his drama, heck I've even turned to the usually matchstick in ones eyelid sport that is cricket to get a live sport fix. What an over by Anderson, precision bowling and then some 👌 

Now for this super short session down at the syndicate section of the Warwickshire Avon Big Chub were on my mind. It's hardly precision fishing this admittedly, turn up before dusk throw a few freebies in and then wait for the chub to turn up hunt out ones ridiculously pungent homemade cheesepaste.

If they are there they really do show themselves on the rod tip rather quickly and bites and fish can remain for the whole session. If they are elsewhere there is a lot of thumb twiddling and praying to the fish Gods to do to remain entertained. 

It's why short sessions work for me, how the heck anglers fish days without bites is beyond me, I'm one of those cardboard cut-outs at the Stretford End, my legs grow legs upon legs to pander to ones Willis-Ekbom Disease. 

The chub and I love blue cheese where as the other half can’t imagine how we can look at the fuzzy blue veins of mould and want to add it to our savoury biscuits. Blue cheese is a classification of cheeses that describes those that have cultured Penicillium mould, and you either love or hate the distinctive furred texture and sharp, salty taste. 

Legend tells that it was first discovered by a young man who had forgotten his lunch of bread and cheese in a cave near the village of Roquefort, and when he returned found that he enjoyed the taste of the mould that had grown on his snack. 

We don’t know if this story is true, but we do know that humans have been enjoying the delicacy for at least the last 9,000 years!

But what about that 'awful' smell? that the Chub home in on and taints the hands whenever the cheespaste is moulded on to ones 3D printed depth bomb. Well the smell of many kinds of blue cheese is due to the bacteria Brevibacterium linens  and it smells like feet because its the same bacteria causing that smell too. 


"Mick, back to the fishing please" I hear you cry !!!!

Now I've always upheld the belief that whatever is to happen is already fixed, so usually I have an pack-up time already noted down in my head and 99 times out of 100 I stick to it. 

So better get fishing hadn't it, this session would be 2 hours where an hour of that would be in the dark, enough for an evenings fishing fix though. So anyway, out with the pungent paste and lets try and bank a 6lb Chevin....


The last Chub I caught here was over 5lb but to be fair it has been tough going, some sessions I'd catch a few fish generally over 3 or 4lb and then in similar conditions I'd blank and then blank again. 

It's not fished much though so it probably doesn't help there isn't a fat lot of bait going in. The double figure barbel I caught here came after baiting quite heavily with hemp and pellets and fishing over the top with a boilie bait.


The river really did look perfect when I got bankside half an hour before dusk, that sort of greyish green colour, I'm sure a fish would be up for a feed. The water was cold though so after putting a some amount of bait down I decided to throw the lure around to try and at least get a quick bite.

Nothing doing though so I settled in to the swim just as the light was going and a torch was required to illuminate the rod tip. 


Once the sunset it felt cold, very cold indeed. There was a clear sky and the stars were bright but that's where the enjoyment ended, because despite the conditions seemingly good for a Chevin to bite, to cut a long story short errr sadly they didn't. 

 Not even a nibble, pull or a tap, damn fish, I thought I'd worked them out 👎 back to the drawing board. To fair I was glad the countdown clock went bong as it was -2 when I left and my hands despite cloves felt rather cold.

2 comments:

  1. I really should fish for chub again. My local river has some absolute pigs in it but it's not a prolific stretch (is 3 miles a stretch?) though the chublets are coming through now. I really do think about seeding some of the chublets in places where legend has it they're not there for someone even if not me to find several pounds bigger in a few years time.

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  2. Worth a try for sure I love catching chub proper scrapers. They have been a little elusive of late though, even they are finding it cold me thinks.

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