Warwickshire Avon - Chubsters and Chthonophagia

With a week off work next week I thought I'd try and cram in a short session to try and catch a barbel. The Warwickshire Avon is gin clear at the moment however the witching hour things can often change and the angler can often be rewarded.

When I arrived at the carpark via the bumpy track Jon Pinfold and his son were just getting out the van and they were going to do exactly what I was going to do. There was also another couple of anglers sharing one of the convient swims. 

Jon's son hot-footed it up to the weir and Jon and I headed to the middle of the river and got fishing. In my swim ping in pellets there was already plenty of fish in the swim. They seemed like decent roach with the odd big chub in and amongst them. 

For a good hour and a half I only had chub pulls with the fish trying to pull the small pellet from the hair. The roach were still milling around and I actually scaled down to an 18 hook and a rubber maggot but they actively ignored it when cast in to the swim.

I switched back to pellet headed in to dusk thinking how I could fish for them in a future session and 10 minutes later a barbel esk bite and a fish was on. I really did think it was a small barbel at first because it was taking line but when it was heading to cover I knew what the culprit was.

A really nice chub, not that long but proper stocky it was and would go around 4lb I'd imagine. A really deep body and a fish that was likely to have been on the munch.

Anyway to cut a long story short, no more fish only more chub pulls before curfew. Jon's son blanked which is rare and Jon had an eel. The anglers sharing a swim, only chub pulls too. Tough going and I was lucky to actually get to land a fish.