Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.10

My largest chub on the float of 5lb and 11 ounces was caught from the Warwickshire Avon on a stretch that sadly is no more, you see a pollution incident wiped out the stretch and others up and downstream of it. The same time the farmer decided to concentrate on horse events on his land so the small syndicate I was part of was no more, and those fees for the new season were never collected. 

A blessing in disguise ? 

Well those big barbel and chub that once existed on this stretch were lost in large numbers and someone else who used to fish the stretch that I bumped in to, was brought to tears when he saw the devastation the pollution had caused. Fish have started to migrate to the polluted areas over recent months so there's some glimmers of hope, but it's going to take a while before it gets back to anywhere near its past form. 

With that stretch now out of action it forced my hand really to find another similar area where hopefully there were some similar long trotting swims. When the river is cold and with a couple of feet of visibility trotting bread flake and feeding bread mash is a great way to explore a large river, and often when the fish are hiding because the threat of cormorants ( I spotted 5 today feeding in the river and plenty flying overhead) it can often bring the fish out from their hiding to impulse feed.

A good hour and half of long trotting I decided to have a much needed cup of tea and then fish the next half an hour around a foot shallower than I had been fishing and a meter further out, to see if that was the change I needed to make the trip out in to the cold pay. 

Then out of the blue after what seemed like a hundred or so long trots down the float shot under the surface and I lifted the 15ft rod in to a solid fish. The problem was the bite was exactly where I'm pointing and after 5 seconds of me hanging on for dear life the chub did me over good and proper and snagged me right up....

....oh FFS

At least I knew there were fish around and after setting up again after losing literally all the gear I got fishing again and decided to stop twenty minutes longer than I was going to. With a few minutes beofre the curfew left I got a second chance however this time I managed to steer the chub away from the snag in to the main part of the river.

An epic battle ensued with the rod doing most of the work to control the fish and in the end the hard fighting fish knew its game was up. A lovely fat fish as well going 4lb and 10 ounces on the scales. Not the longest of fish the Warwickshire Avon is renowned for but certainly a chub with like me, its winter belly on.

I'm glad I stayed a little longer now, it only takes a bit of luck doesn't it to change a session and the fishing Gods were looking down on me thankfully. I really do love this method and the river is in decent nick at the moment so I'll have another go before the year end hopefully.