Warwickshire Avon - Minions and Mirabiliary

Rump cap of dry aged Herefordshire beef, sticky cheek, sweet and sour onions, Hook Norton ale and smoked ox tongue jus...

La-di-da I hear you cry !!!

Apart from "sounds expensive" (my brother) this sort of food you either love or hate I suppose, you get or you don't . The reality is I love this sort of food as a treat once in a while because let's be honest every feelgood thing in life in these times needs to be grabbed with both hands.

 

For many fishing is for the select few, those that love to sit on their backsides in the cold and the rain catching naff all, but lets keep it that way I would rather have quieter banks keeping what we know to ourselves. Fishing gives me the feel good factor in spades as you know, so with a lure rod in my left hand and a quiver rod in my right hand I was off the Warwickshire Avon to try and winkle out a chub or a perch. 

The conditions would be pretty pants to be honest and a word from Nic who fished not far away went home early because on a usually productive stretch, he failed to even get a single bite, and that was on maggot under a float.

Still I decided to venture out and prepared to blank but you cannot catch something if you haven't a bait in the water. The water as expected was gin clear, so clean in-fact you could see the bottom in almost all of the swims. Where the heck do the fish disappear off too ?

God only knows but still I thought the lure rod would get the fish out from under their hiding places even if it was just a small perch or something. 

But sadly not, swim after swim and nearly two hours without a bite and a couple of those I prebaited with mash, and sadly the bread was still there when I returned, there was nothing doing whatsoever. 

One swim though always delivers, well ok, more often than not and this was a swim I left to prime right at the start of the session. Anyway I settled in to that swim and was looking for my hand warmer in my bag when I stumbled upon the Minion Squashies Sam gave me. 

You see a purchase on a whim neither of the kids liked them so they ended up in my fishing bag for emergency purposes if as often happens I've forgotten to bring bait or ran out of ir. You only have to look at my blog to see why I love to try new baits. This blog post one of many over the years. 

The squashie went out over the pieces of bread and expecting nothing to happen, but happen it did because out of the blue the tip jumps in to life and the rod pulled round violently almost pulling it off the rest. That happened in a split second but with the reactions of a star-nosed mole (8ms apparently 🤯) I lifted the rod and I was in to a hard fighting chub.

A pretty brutal fight ensued and it was taking line at a fast rate of knots initially before turning it, I also managed to steer it way from a sunken stump because that would have been game over but it was certainly giving a good account for itself.

Anyway a quick weigh it went 4lb and 10oz on the scales. A very nice fish indeed and made the trip out worthwhile. I could have stayed longer just in to dusk before I had to make haste but I decided to call the session early and head back to the car with a smile on my face.