Warwickshire Avon - Billysticks and Buckminsterfullerene

I'm very lucky indeed with much of the Warwickshire Avon I fish within the Stratford-Upon-Avon district 5 to 7 miles door to door. It means not only can I justify it in the travel restricted lock-down, but it means I can have spur of the minute sessions like this one with the drop of ones peaked beanie hat.

Now I was on this stretch in the week and the chub seem to have made a comeback, however the sun was particularly bright and high in the sky for this mid-afternoon, so a static bait may not be the best option.

Now I've used this truncheon float with success in the past, a large hook, a lump of luncheon meat or a chunk of breadflake. Often the fish are tucked away be can still be caught as they are less suspicious with a bait moving past their noggin's.

For this session a loaf of Warburtons Blue liquidised as feed with a 6 or 7 slices kept for the hook. Bread is such a visual bait for the sight feeding chub esepcailly 

The colour looked perfect for bread when I saw the river so I hot footed it to a swim I've fished before, a swim where the middle is steady, the far side pacey and the end of the swim which is a decent trot it shallows up.

There isn't much science to this type of fishing, feed some liquidised bread from time to time to try and get fish in to the swim and simply fish a large piece of bread on the hook which hopefully should be their downfall.

Nothing much happened for half an hour or so but I changed my line a little to when the river was a little deeper. This was the change that was needed because two trots down the float buried and the first chub was on.

It was hooked at the tail end of the swim though and in decent flow the fish give a great fight with the rivers current aiding their attempted escape.  I dread to think what a 5lb Barbel would feel like in this flow, probably something 4 times the size. 

I lost two fish in this two hour session, one where the hook pulled and the other when it got under the platform and broke off when the hook pulled when the line grated on the scaffolding.

I still managed to bank 4 fish though, this being the biggest I could managed, not a huge fish as caught a 5lber the swim just up from here in the week but it was a bit of a bruiser though and fought far better than its size suggested.

A short session because I had to pick one of the kids up from school, but well worth it though despite the wind which was gusting up to 30mph or so.

The previous few days really have been rather wild and it is set to continue before the season end. I'll still be out though Saturday and Sunday before the canal Zander quest kicks in again, now where to go what to do, decisions decisions.