Warwickshire Avon - Zealots and Zandophiles

I do keep off the news these days for good reason but I overheard a meteorologist that dubbed today's storm "angry Agnes" as it begins to snake its way across Ireland as I type this. Luckily we didn't have to batten down the hatches for this session down at the Warwickshire Avon but apparently we may well see temperatures start to rise again, and it looks like we might actually have a little bit of an Indian summer.

That would be nice wouldn't it considering just how bad the 'summer' we had in the UK. We rarely sat outside in the evening where usually in years gone by me and Wife used to chill with a couple of glasses of wine and put the worlds to rights. I've a load of lumpwood charcoal for the BBQ too, damn it will have to wait till next year now.

Anyway for this session Nic and I decided to try and target the Zander on the Warwickshire Avon where the rather large trees on the private stretch would hopefully provide a bit of shelter from the prevailing winds . To be honest the last couple of times here haven't exactly been prolific on the Zander front, but it's not all about the fishing is it, because it's nice having a catch-up as well as some much needed fresh air.

Now it was quite a nice day to go fishing too as my twin brother Chris's, middle daughter and my niece Kizzie turned 18 today so whilst she is going to buy her Dad a pint from the pub, I'd raise a deadbait to try and catch a river Zander in celebration, whilst Kizzie was looking for her ID. To be fair my brother is part of the furniture in many of the pubs in Westward Ho!! so Kizzie is well known too having lived down there for 7 years (I think) so it won't be needed. 

Now two identical twins always went fishing together. One twin always caught a netful; the other never caught a thing. They could use exactly the same tackle and bait, could stand fishing right next to each other, could swap over spots, but the result was always the same- one twin couldn't haul out the fish fast enough, while the other wouldn't even get a touch.

One night the unlucky twin decided to do something about it. He crept out of bed, put on his brother's clothes, borrowed all his tackle and went out at dawn to the spot where his brother had been so successful the previous day.

For a couple of hours he fished, with not a thing to show for it. Then he saw a huge carp cruising towards his bait.

"This is it,' he thought, and tensed up ready to strike. But his float didn't budge. Instead the carp surfaced slowly and poked its head out of the water.
'Morning,' it said. 'Where's your brother?'

When we used to bike from Meriden to Somers with our cobbled together tackle despite what he'd say I always used to catch more than him, and bigger fish too. I'm sure what was down to luck more than anything because looking back, yeah I had a lot to learn. 

Now we both arrived at around 6.00pm and within 10 minutes Nic had a >1lb perch on the bank that took a small deadbait and then as the light was going I started to get bites on my set-up. One rod smelt and the other a small roach.

The bobbins were dancing on both rods but once the rod was lifted there wasn't any progression of the bites. On inspection of the deadbaits there was an inch long puncture mark which can only mean one thing which was a small zed with eyes bigger than its belly.

With confidence high we'd get a bite we fished well in to dark braving the wind which at one point got us looking at the tree behind us wondering if we'd need to take cover. At one point the rain was lashing down too which wasn't predicted it certainly was a bit of a wild session weather wise.

Sadly though by 9.00pm, well over an hour in to dark nothing materialised and when the restaurant  boat decided to turn before heading past us not long after that, we decided enough was enough and started to pack-up. Very disappointing considering the initial hype of activity from the zedlets but that's fishing for you. I've never done that well in a (near) full moon and I'm sure that had something to do with it. Good to catch up with Nic though, not all bad.