Warwickshire Avon - Rammish and Rankness

Now if you’ve ever wondered why cheesepaste is basically the winter equivalent of chub kryptonite, picture a cold, grey river where everything sensible is hiding and trying to conserve energy except the chub, which apparently didn’t get the memo and is still waddling around with the appetite of a teenager let loose at an all-you-can-eat buffet. 

While most creatures in winter are thinking deep, philosophical thoughts like, “I shall not move unless absolutely necessary,” the chub is out there cruising the currents like a fridge on fins, sniffing around for its next questionable snack. Cheesepaste works because it smells like a dairy explosion (in the best possible way). Even in icy water, that bold, unmistakable aroma travels straight into a chub’s brain like a flashing neon sign saying, “FREE FOOD, LIMITED TIME ONLY.” And despite whatever internal fish-logic they might have, the chub’s stomach always wins the argument. 

One minute it’s saying, “We don’t really need to eat today,” and the next it’s screaming, “IT’S CHEESE—TAKE IT, YOU FOOL!” By the time your carefully moulded glob of cheesepaste hits the riverbed, the chub is already mentally clearing space in its digestive system like someone unbuttoning their jeans after Christmas dinner.

The texture doesn’t hurt either. Cheesepaste is soft, squidgy, and reassuringly edible-feeling—nothing that screams “HOOK!” or “SUSPICIOUS HUMAN TRICKERY!” It’s basically the comfort food of the fish world. The fats and oils seep out gently, drifting downstream, whispering to any lurking chub, “Hey… psst… winter’s terrible… come emotional-eat your feelings.”

 And let’s be honest, chub have the kind of appetite that could impress a Labrador. They don’t nibble delicately or make polite decisions about portion sizes they hoover. So when that irresistible lump of cheesepaste rolls into view, the chub doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t negotiate. It just goes full vacuum-cleaner mode, because in its mind, winter survival is 10% instinct and 90% “if it fits, I eats.”

So really, that’s why cheesepaste shines in winter: it’s warm, it’s rich, it’s smelly, and to a hungry chub in January, it’s basically a Michelin-starred meal disguised as a fistful of dairy and breadcrumbs. Anyway I’d not been up this part of the Warwickshire Avon for a good while, and as soon as I stepped through the gate I was reminded why I’d missed it proper big chub country. 

Not your “that’ll do” three-pounders, but those thick-set, winter-ready bruisers that sulk under snags like they’re weighing up whether to eat your bait or just glare at you for disturbing them. With the working week mercifully ending at 12:30pm, I had a few golden hours for a roving session before the light slipped away and the frost started creeping back in.

A rather rude overnight temperature drop had iced everything into a crunchy misery, and as I trudged along the bank I couldn’t help thinking, “This is going to be tricky, isn’t it?” But tricky often means interesting, and interesting usually means chub so the plan was simple. 

 

Check out a handful of swims, trickle in a few paste nuggets to get the dinner bell chiming, and then give each spot a disciplined fifteen minutes with a lump of cheesepaste wrapped round the hook. No lounging about, no overthinking just cover water and let the river tell me what mood it’s in.

I know this stretch can produce fish that make you question the strength of your landing net handle. My PB chub stands at a rather pleasing 6lb 2oz, but the Warwickshire Avon these days feels like exactly the sort of river where personal bests quietly go to die. 

These fish are big, bold, and more than happy to loiter where the regulars introduce bait those steady trickles of crumb and pellet forming underwater dining rooms that the chub slip into with the swagger of customers who know the chef personally.

Every swim felt like it had a story. A slack beneath a leaning willow here, a crease pushing off a sunken tree there, each one looking like the kind of place a big old chub might sit and ponder the meaning of life or at least the meaning of cheese. 

The river had that cold, metallic green look to it, the kind that says, “If you’re not organised, you’re blanking.” Thankfully, I’d brought enough cheesepaste to supply a medium-sized pizzeria as I made a fresh batch, so morale remained high.

With each stop I would mould the paste round the size 6 hook, swung it carefully into the quietest part of the swim, and settled in. Fifteen minutes. Not sixteen. Not a hopeful seventeen. Just enough time for a curious slab-sided river monster to shuffle out of its lair and decide whether today was the day it fancied a dairy-based snack.

Whether I’d pick up a chub or two didn’t matter quite as much as the roaming itself the slow meander along a nice stretch, the crunch of bank frost underfoot, and the quiet feeling that any cast, absolutely any cast, could produce the fish that finally nudges that PB off the top spot. And truth be told, on a river like the Warwickshire Avon, that possibility is the real hook that keeps you coming back.

Anyway after all the planning, the session got off to a cracking start, even if I was still rubbing the CAD eyes and wondering whether the river gods were in a benevolent mood or the usual spiteful one. I’d just wandered past two anglers sat in what looked like textbook chub real estate proper slack water, overhanging branches, the whole brochure when I plonked myself in a swim that looked, frankly, like it needed a pep talk. Still, there was a snail-pace crease just off the fast water, a kind of aquatic conveyor belt leading straight out of a tree-affected riffle, and that was enough for me.

To my utter astonishment (and mild panic), the cheesepaste barely had time to introduce itself before the first chub walloped it. Then another on the very next cast. Sudden chaos, proper rod-hooping bedlam, the sort of action that makes you look around to check no one saw you grinning like an idiot. The better fish an old warrior of a 4-pounder gave me a scrap that suggested it’d done a bit of boxing on the side. Then, as chub often do when they’ve had their fun making you feel smug, the swim completely died on me.

So off I went for a rove. That’s when I found myself utterly preoccupied with the world’s fastest rattly bites so quick they could’ve been powered by caffeine. I swapped to a smaller hook and a bit of bread, but I still couldn’t connect. It felt like trying to text someone back while wearing oven gloves. Annoying, comedic, and slightly humbling.

Eventually I gave myself the customary kick up the backside and marched back to the job at hand. Five swims later I ended up right back where I started typical. At dusk, just as the sky turned that moody shade of “you’ve pushed your luck, mate,” a plucky 2-lber obliged. Lovely fish… followed immediately by the heavens opening and soaking me to the marrow on the trudge back to the car.

Still, an enjoyable few hours. No monster today but I’ll be back. The river owes me one, and I intend to collect.

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.43

Now there’s a very specific type of joy that hits a man square in the soul when he walks into the shared works loo and sees that deep celestial blue water staring back at him like the portal to a better dimension where people actually clean up after themselves; it’s a fleeting moment of hope before reality reminds you that somewhere in the building there lurks a grown adult who pees like a Jackson Pollock tribute act and flushes with the commitment of a man blowing out birthday candles.

As careful and courteous as I am hovering like a crane operator trying to land a pallet of Ming vases there are always those who treat the place like they still live with their mums, leaving behind the sort of aftermath that would have the UN sending in observers.

Anyway speaking of bodily evacuations, it put me in the mind to escape the office, syphon the python properly, and then head down to the syndicate stretch for an evening dabble to winkle out something with fins, dignity, and hopefully better house training.

I had a tub of lobworms from Willy Worms that had been glaring at me from the fridge like long, glistening noodles of guilt ever since the Teme trip, and frankly they needed a swim before they applied for asylum. Proper Canadian Night Crawlers, imported straight from the land of maple syrup, moose, and people who say “sorry” even when you walk into them.

I figured that whatever I’d been doing lately clearly wasn’t tickling the fancy of anything aquatic, so a change was in order: robin red groundbait, a handful of maggots in the feeder, and on the hook, a lobworm and a half as if presenting the fish with the worm equivalent of a king-size duvet.

Now, I’ve used lobworms successfully over the years, especially when dusk rolls in and everything takes on that magical, slightly spooky quiet that convinces you a personal best barbel is about to appearor a badger wearing a head torch. Something about a big juicy worm writhing in the current sends those subterranean Richter scales twitching.

Even Barbara the Barbel, who’s been playing hard to get ever since Sean blundered into her patch like a drunken wedding crasher, surely can’t resist a bait like that. Lobworms are basically the Almas caviar, Kobe beef, white truffles, and Matsutake mushrooms of the piscine world, except cheaper and stored next to the yoghurt in my fridge, much to the family’s ongoing disgust.

True, the river had been rising and falling like a drunk uncle on a pogo stick, and temperatures had dipped to the kind of level that make fish consider hibernation, religion, or migration, but as the old saying goes you can’t catch owt without something wet, smelly, and wriggling in the water.

 So off I toddled with hope in my heart, mud on my boots, and a bucket of Canadian immigrants who were about to discover that after a long cultural journey across the Atlantic, their final destination was a muddy Worcestershire riverbed where their job would be to impersonate luxury cuisine for creatures with the IQ of a bath sponge.

And honestly, as I trudged along the bank past the dead fox watching the river glisten under the last smudge of daylight, rod over my shoulder like some middle-aged angling Messiah.

Now I felt that wonderful, daft optimism only fishing can give you the belief that tonight might just be the night, that the stars would align, that Barbara (or other rod benders) would forgive me for past failures, that the worms would dance seductively enough, and that for once I might not sit there for three hours contemplating life, death, and why the bloke in cubicle three needs a full-time carer.

But that’s the magic of the river every cast is a tiny gamble, a silly little hope wrapped in groundbait and desperation, and as I lobbed that first wormy parcel into the nice slack, I grinned foolishly headed into the dusk, convinced that somewhere down there, some discerning fish in need of a late-night snack was already drifting over, sniffing like a Michelin inspector at a roadside burger van, ready to make my evening infinitely better than the state of the office toilets ever will.

The worms were getting a bit of attention straight away probably more than I ever get on a night out yet after a few hopeful plucks and half-hearted tugs, it took ages (and full-on darkness) before anything serious happened. Then bam! Out of nowhere the tip gives a sharp yank and then just keeps going like it’s late for an appointment.

I strike, I feel the classic head-nodding of a fish—finally!—and then… that’s where the joy ended. It popped off after a few seconds, Bugger !! I even let out the traditional angler’s cry of “OH COME ON!” to let the universe know I was displeased, then a full on grin and a chuckle to myself.

Thankfully, I’m pretty sure it was only a small chub, not one of the lurking monsters that swim here (I caught one 5lb 13oz back in October) and only bite when you’ve packed up and walked 20 yards away. And that was it. One bite. One lost fish. I carried on like an optimist with poor life choices and got absolutely nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. The fish had spoken, and they said, “Not today, mate.”

Thankfully after fishing it got a bit better, you see I love it when the wife says, “You can cook for yourself if you want when you get back,” because that’s basically my licence to unleash flavours she’d never willingly go near. After a fishless wander by the water, I fancied something with proper punch, so earlier at lunchtime I headed to the newly discovered oriental store near work an absolute Aladdin’s cave for anyone who likes chillies strong enough to remove wallpaper.

I grabbed a bag of prawns so big they looked like they’d once had gym memberships, plus a few mystery ingredients that smelled dangerously promising. Back home, I threw everything into a Panang curry that bubbled away like it was plotting something.

The result? A fiery, fragrant masterpiece that made my eyes water in the best possible way. The prawns were top notch too firm, sweet, and cheap enough that I briefly suspected smuggling. The wife poked her head in, sniffed, and said, “That’s… strong,” which is her polite code for “I’m not touching that, enjoy your self-inflicted suffering.”. Bliss. Oh and the water temp was 8.8 degrees BTW

Warwickshire Stour - Frostbound Flummery and Fanciful Foppery

There’s nothing quite like waking up to an overnight frost so thick it looks like your windscreen has been laminated in frozen milk full-fat, none of that semi-skimmed nonsense. I stood there, scraper in hand, attacking the ice on the Jimny with all the enthusiasm and finesse of a man chiselling at the Rosetta Stone using a spoon he stole from a motorway service station. As the shards of frost ricocheted off my face, I found myself pondering whether the great oracles of angling the Fishing Gods, the Weather App, and the Mrs. might, for once, be aligned in something other than their mutual disdain for my weekend plans.

And blow me down with a roach scale, they were. Because shining through that crisp, biting, nose-hair-snapping cold was the sort of sun that leans in, gives you a cheeky wink, and whispers, “Go on lad… go fishing… the chores can wait, the odds are against you, and let’s face it, you were never going to grout that bathroom anyway.”

After consulting with the Oracle the evening before (you know who you are, dispenser of cryptic advice and suspicious confidence), I set off to the diminutive Warwickshire Stour the muddy little underdog of a river that looks, at first glance, like it ought to hold nothing bigger than a confused stickleback with low self-esteem and perhaps a midlife crisis. 

Its colour can best be described as “eau de farm runoff,” and if you scoop a handful up, it smells faintly of cow gossip and the distant echo of a tractor that hasn’t been serviced since 1987.

But those who know the Stour proper those who’ve crouched on its slippery banks, dropped their phone in to it, with £40 at the bask of the case, fallen into its unsuspecting holes, or been mugged by a surprised moorhen understand the truth: beneath that suspiciously green surface lurk chub that fight like they’ve been raised on black coffee, creatine, and daily screenings of Rocky II. 

And then there are the roach. Oh, the roach. plump, smug creatures of such girth that rumours circulate of them entering local Strongman competitions under assumed names. There’s even talk of a 3lb 2oz roach who once flipped a tractor tyre, though that may have been exaggerated by at least three pints and a packet of Scampi Fries.

Now, the Stour isn’t just any tributary. Oh no. It’s the river that gave Shipston-on-Stour its name though presumably after rejecting several alternatives like Shipston-On-Boggy-Trickle or Shipston-On-That-Drain-Behind-Tesco. 

Rising in Oxfordshire before slinking through Warwickshire toward the Avon, the Stour enjoys long walks in the countryside, getting flooded at inappropriate times, and being blamed for the agricultural sins of mankind. Classic British river behaviour, really.

Arriving at the bank with a windscreen finally visible after ten minutes of cardio I found the river much lower than expected. 

The Stour is usually a lovely shade of pastoral pea-soup, but today it looked like it had been on the kale smoothies again. Still, the colour was right. 

The smell was right. And above all, the sense of “big roach maybe, possibly, please please let it happen today” hung in the air like the breath cloud of a man who’s spent far too long daydreaming of mythical 2-lbers.

Speaking of which, yes, I did once lose a monster on another stretch. A fish so wide I still get phantom tugs in the night thinking about it. 

A fish that rose, winked at me, flexed its pecs, and then parted company with my hook like it had better places to be. Therapy may be required.

Tactics today were classic winter simplicity: a thumbnail of bread on a size 12, liquidised bread in the feeder, and my trusty TFG River & Stream rod with a 0.5oz glass tip the kind of setup that makes you feel like a proper roving river ninja rather than a grown man stumbling about in waders trying not to fall in.

Roving is my favourite way to fish these skinny rivers. Cast, wait ten minutes, catch or swear, move on. It’s a sort of aquatic speed-dating. You power through more swims than a salmon with impatience issues, you stay warm, and your mind clears of all life’s rubbish. It’s like meditation, except instead of chanting “om,” you mutter “that looked like a bite… didn’t it?”

And then—BOOM. First swim. Ten minutes in. The quivertip went from calm and steady to “ABSOLUTELY NOT, MATE” as if the chub had just heard last orders at the pub. 

A proper clattering bite. I struck, the rod hooped over, and the Stour delivered its first hard-fighting chub of the morning. Not huge, but scrappy, bullish, and determined like a drunk terrier defending a pork pie.

Downstream I trudged, enjoying the rare pleasure of fingers that were only mostly numb. Swim two offered another lightning bite and another chub… except this one fought like a pub bouncer who’d recently taken a correspondence course in Advanced Dirty Tricks. 

It ploughed into reeds, wrapped itself around submerged foliage, and somehow attempted both a kidney punch and a kick in the nuts. The thing escaped in the end, leaving me questioning whether it had also stolen my wallet.

But the chub were properly on it today. Almost every swim produced action. In one shady little glide and raft, a fish grabbed the bread almost on the drop and shot off upstream like it had just remembered it’d left the oven on. 

Another quick strike another hooked fish another ping as the hook popped out. At this point I started wondering whether these chub had unionised and voted for coordinated resistance.

Still, hope springs eternal in the quivering heart of an angler, and sure enough I dropped back in and had another bite within minutes. 

That one stayed on, probably out of sheer politeness. Eventually, the morning tally reached seven chub, all on bread, with the best going maybe 3½lb. Not exactly a British record, but on light gear on a frosty morning, it felt like battling river-reared prizefighters.

No roach, sadly. Not even a modest one for morale and maggots I tried were hovered up by minnows, but when you’ve had a morning like that sunshine, fish, cold air that wakes your soul up instead of freezing it solid you walk back to the car with a grin that suggests you know something the rest of the world doesn’t.

And then, the Sunday continued its ascent into a proper good'un.

The rabble and I marched proudly into Stratford-upon-Avon’s busy Christmas market like a troop of victors returning from battle. A pub stop was of course mandatory purely medicinal to warm the bones with a winter ale that tasted like Santa’s beard had been steeped in malt.

Then home for a roast pork dinner with all the trimmings, followed by Formula 1, YouTube binge watching and the glorious feeling of having wrung every last drop of joy from a crisp winter Sunday. One of those rare days you wish you could bottle, label as “For Emergency Use Only,” and drink whenever the world turns moody.

A frost, a river, some chub, a pub, and a roast.

If that’s not the recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is.

Warwickshire Avon - Maggotry and Muddlecrust

Weekends, for those of us chained to desks like Victorian typists, are not a luxury but a biological necessity. Some people recharge by doing yoga or buying candles that smell like Scandinavian forests; I, however, achieve inner peace only through trotting a river with a pint of maggots and a level of obsession that would concern most medical professionals. 

So, armed with two pints from Martyn the Maggot Peddler a man whose entire personality could be accurately summarised as “smells faintly of ammonia” I was already riding high on the anticipation of bent rods and bruised knuckles. In my mind, it was a simple plan: go to river, unleash maggots, let destiny unfold. Destiny, as ever, had its own plans.

The river had apparently been threatened with a dramatic rise. A biblical surge. Possibly a cameo by Moses. Instead, when I arrived, it sat there completely unfazed, wearing a quiet olive hue as if to say, “Rise? Me? I don’t get out of bed for less than three feet, mate.” Nic from Avon Angling had been messaging me earlier with the feverish excitement of a man who had just discovered unlimited chub in the afterlife.

 “They’re having it BIG TIME!” he said. “Get down here NOW. Quit your job. Sell the house. Don’t worry about the dog (If I had one that is).” He even offered me his swim, which in angling terms is like offering someone your firstborn.

But fate intervened, and instead of dancing waders-first into a chub frenzy, I found myself trapped in a Virtual Reality meeting, guiding a collection of confused colleagues through a digital interior that looked like a cross between all manner of benchmarks and a parallel nightmare dimension. Nothing like listening to someone insist that “the floor keeps moving” while you try to concentrate on maggots waiting for you in the fridge.

Naturally, by the time I reached the river, the once-mythical chub gully Nic had raved about where he’d caught so many fish the previous day he could’ve opened a chub-only aquarium was now as clear as a freshly polished wine glass. I could practically see the riverbed sighing. 

Still, rain began drizzling in that persistent British way, the kind that nudges you gently but relentlessly like an overly chatty aunt at Christmas. So I set up, trotted the float downstream, hoped for the best, and tried to ignore the voice in my head whispering, “You could’ve stayed home and crumpets.”

Finally, after what felt like thirty-seven years, the float slid under. I struck with the enthusiasm of a man trying to swat away the entire month of February, and suddenly glory be there it was: a chub. And a pristine one too, the sort of fish that looks like it exfoliates regularly and moisturises with river minerals. 

My keepnet, which had not seen daylight since the Obama administration, was dusted off and ceremoniously deployed. I allowed myself a moment of pure, unfiltered optimism. “This is it,” I whispered. “This is where the session turns legendary.”

 It did not turn legendary.

Instead, it turned into a full hour of absolutely nothing. No bites, no taps, not even a rogue leaf hitting the line. It was like the river had decided that giving me one fish was enough charity for the day. 

So I did what any sensible angler does: I messaged Nic again, hoping for a dose of remote river guidance. He suggested moving downstream, like some sort of mystical chub whisperer. Off I trudged.

Two anglers were already stationed on the better swim, radiating the smugness of men who had arrived ten minutes earlier and therefore rightfully owned the universe. 

So I slipped into the next available spot and commenced what I like to think of as The Second Wave of Maggot Diplomacy. After another missed bite a good half and hour in, a theme of the day I finally connected again, right at the tail end of the trot where the water shallowed into a perfect ambush zone. 

A small chub rolled into the net. Then another. Then another. Then yet another. Four chub in quick succession! A burst of joy! A ripple of hope! A brief and fleeting sense that life had meaning!

And then the sun came out directly in front of me like an aggressive lighthouse, hitting my eyes at precisely the angle that would render me partially blind. 

As I squinted into the glare, the weather decided very helpfully to reintroduce rain into the equation, this time with more enthusiasm. 

Not drizzle. Not mist. No, this was sideways, face-slapping rain, the kind that seems personally offended by your presence. I was essentially being water-boarded by the sky while trying to watch a float I could no longer physically see.

At that point, the universe had made its position clear.

I packed up, damp, dazzled, smelling faintly of maggots and covered in dust, but still stubbornly pleased with myself. 

On the way back to the car, I wandered past an allotment and helped myself to some beetroot, because nothing says “true angler” like walking away from the river clutching stolen root vegetables like a Victorian vagabond.

Was it a brilliant session? No. Was it a perfect session? Absolutely not. Did I catch enough fish to justify the rain, the blindness, the existential monologue, and the maggot-related expenses? Honestly… probably? But that’s the thing about fishing: even the most middling day on the bank beats the best day anywhere else. Because every trot holds a spark of hope. Every submerged float makes your heart race. And every stolen beetroot tastes like victory.

Warwickshire Avon - Big Bites and Broodmares

Honestly, it’s been one of those weeks again the sort where you glance at the headlines, clock Rachel “Fiscal Drag” Meister of Misery wagging her spreadsheet about like she’s summoning demons from HMRC, and you can actually feel your spirit unhooking itself from your ribcage and floating off toward the kettle. Frozen thresholds here, stealth taxes there, and suddenly EVs those saintly, planet-saving milk floats are apparently carbon Bigfoots stomping about leaving a footprint the size of Norfolk. Who knew? (Well, everyone who’s ever seen the battery of one, but let’s not spoil the narrative.)

Meanwhile, the workers yes, the workers like me, the people who actually stand up for more than three consecutive minutes get asked to cough up yet again, so someone else can either (a) produce another small human, or (b) fire off another benefit form with the enthusiasm of a man ordering his seventh takeaway curry of the week. Greenwashing everywhere. Common sense nowhere. It’s like living inside an advert for eco-friendly bog-roll that’s actually made of compressed despair.

At this point I’m tempted to give up, buy myself a shiny new tracksuit (the sort that goes “fwip-fwip-fwip” when you walk), and ascend gracefully onto the Benefits Carousel complete with jaunty organ music and a complimentary Pot Noodle. I could sit there, wobbling gently like a Buddha with a Nectar card, watching the world burn while I perfect my daytime-TV scowl.

Anyway talking of couch potatoes if you can beat them join them I plonked myself on the sofa the other night ostensibly to rest after a long day of CAD bashing pretending to be productive but really to embrace my inner couch-dwelling troglodyte, only to end up watching Bring Her Back, a little Australian horror flick that makes my usual fishing misadventures look like episodes of Postman Pat. 

Now, I’m no stranger to disturbing scenes I've see anglers fishing for mud-sifters lick boilies before casting but this film delivered enough gore to make even a pike burp politely and swim away. 

Two step-siblings, creepy rituals, a foster mum with all the warmth of a wet sock, and more shrieking than the time I slipped off a muddy bank into the Avon; honestly it was riveting in the “I should look away but I’ve already committed to the emotional damage” sort of way. 

The ending felt like they'd reeled in too fast and snapped the line, but what’s horror without a bit of narrative whiplash? Recommended though preferably with the lights on, a dram or three, and a comforting thought like “at least my hobbies only involve mild peril.” 

Anyway yes you might have guessed SAD kicking in again despite the Vitamin D supplements that could tranquillise a Shetland pony. All I wanted was daylight, actual daylight on my face, and the only way to guarantee that at this time of year is to go fishing. Thankfully I’d finished early Friday after knocking out just shy of a 45-hour week (not that anyone thanks you for it), rescheduled a dentist appointment for some mythical future date, and started preparing for a long overdue roving session.

I already knew where I was going. A stretch I’d first fished 13 years and 5 months ago, because yes, of course I checked the blog archives down to the exact flipping month. You have to admire the dedication, or question it; both are valid. I hadn’t fished it for ages, but it had produced some cracking chub in the past. Anyway with my Warwickshire Avon PB sitting smugly at 6lb 2oz, and the river throwing out bigger lumps every year, I needed to get cracking if I was going to beat it before my knees retired.

Cheesepaste was the plan, bread back-up if required. I was going to make a fresh batch because the last lot had despite the mould on mould, it gained consciousness and was planning a coup. The new mix hopefully will smell like it could strip wallpaper at twenty paces, which, to a chub, is basically a scented candle and a romantic dinner.

Now Nic from Avon Angling (yes that's me in his latest upload) was out fishing while I’d been chained to my desk in the design studio all week and was sending me updates on colour, clarity, swim potential and, importantly, just how much fun he was having compared to me. 

One of those sessions, a proper haul of chub (>20) succumbing to trotting maggots Jealous? Absolutely. 

But it looked spot on, and with this session done I was already lining up another one at the weekend to do some trotting myself. I was fizzing to get going.

So I arrived, trudged to the stretch, breathed in the damp earthy smell and instantly felt ten percent less feral. The river looked good. Proper good. The kind of colour you get when a Farley's rusk has been left alone in water with bad intentions. I crept into the first swim, moulded on a lump of cheesepaste the size of a baby’s fist, and flicked it out.

Tap. Tiny tremor. Maybe a knock. Or maybe a leaf. After fifteen minutes of trying to read micro-vibrations like I’m auditioning for a role as a human seismograph, I moved on. Second swim, same story. One good pull that nearly had me leaping up like a startled pony then nothing. Absolute textbook chub behaviour: “give him just enough hope to ruin his day.”

Third swim was the one I really fancied. It had produced in the past, back when my back didn’t sound like a bag of gravel and I could crouch without groaning. I dropped the bait in, poured a tea that now tasted faintly of cheesepaste (it gets everywhere), and waited. And waited. 

Then came the old lady dog walker who was trespassing. You know the type pity in their eyes, like they’re looking at a man who’s lost control of his hobbies and possibly his trousers. “Caught anything?” they ask, all innocent.  

I lied when asked if I’d caught anything. Obviously. “Had one earlier.” The classic. The angler’s comfort blanket. Another hour went by, which in angling terms is known as “Character Building” and in real terms is “Why the hell do I do this?” I wandered the bank muttering to myself like someone reviewing their life choices while eating questionable cheese.

Fourth swim. The Promised Land. Snags, depth, slack, basically a Michelin-starred restaurant for chub. I lowered the paste in like I was presenting a fine cheese board to royalty, sat back, and convinced myself the tip would go any second now. This was The One. The swim that would rewrite history, restore my faith, and justify the fact I smell faintly of Stilton and despair.

I stared at that quiver tip like it owed me money. Every twitch? A leaf. Every vibration? Probably a passing otter laughing at me. Meanwhile, my tea tasted like Eau de Cheesepaste No. 5, and my hands looked like they’d been involved in a dairy-related crime scene.

Another fifteen minutes passed. In angling terms, that’s called “Character Building.” In real terms, it’s “Why the hell do I do this?” but then, BUT THEN, out of the blue from Zero to Hero !!

A proper melt down of the rod where one sharp pull the rod went round violently and I hooked in to nothing, NOTHING WTF !! how the heck did I miss that.!!! I pricked the fish with the hook as well and yeap, once bitten twice shy it never came back. By this time the heavens opened and the other two anglers on the stretch vacated the stretch and left me to it.

So the next swim literally another unmissable bite that I missed when the cheesepaste had barely settled. Well this ain't going well now is it !!. Anyway curfew was upon me and despite fishing up to dusk no more bites. The river had dropped so much colour out here it was quite an eyeopener to be honest, where the bait could have been seen a metre down. Hmm maybe trotting with bread was the better idea, still on the way home I stopped off at he who peddles the maggots, so lets try and have a trotting session now shall we, a forgettable session sadly, and from someone who is struggling to get out on the bank that’s not good. 

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.42

I arrived straight from work only to be greeted by the kind of darkness that makes you rethink not just your hobbies, but your entire approach to life. You know the sort the darkness that swallows the world whole and then asks if you’ve got any more it can borrow and the river track still impersonating something from a Discovery Channel documentary swamp edition.

Now I could probably coax the Jimny down to my peg however the syndicate had slapped a temporary block on using the track, presumably for those driving normal cars and not tiny mountain goats disguised as 4x4s.

So there I was: forced to rely on my legs, which normally operate only under duress, and tonight were protesting like French farmers. 

My posh new LED boot lights, which normally make setting up feel like I’m preparing to launch the space shuttle, were rendered useless. 

Instead, I was back to the head torch and the only one what was charged was a cheap, flickery type that seems to run on little more than hope and spite. It illuminates either everything or nothing depending on its mood, and tonight it had apparently chosen “moody ambience.”

The river was still up, muttering darkly under its breath like a pensioner annoyed at modern prices. I made my way to the little slack I’d fished before, zig-zagging my way through the darkness in what can only be described as an “approximate” straight line. 

But even under the dim, sulky glow of the head torch and the zoomable tip torch I could see something was badly wrong like discovering the fridge is empty when you were convinced you’d bought a trifle.

A huge snag half a tree really, the sort that rearranges swims and dreams had completely vanished. Gone. Whisked away by the recent flood like a drunk mate spirited off by a taxi at 3 a.m. That snag had sat between two fishable swims for ages, creating a lovely downstream slack where Barbara the barbel was first spotted. Sean caught her upstream once (though we’re 80% sure it was her and 20% sure it was a large, surly stick). But now the downstream slack was gone, redistributed by Mother Nature in what can only be described as poor taste. A swim changed forever, and not as usual in my favour.

Still, optimism is free, and so is delusion. I got the feeder ready with the kind of stinky krill groundbait that only madmen and barbel enjoy. It’s the sort of concoction that, if spilled in the car, would require professional hazmat involvement. Onto the bait band went a sausage-sizzle pellet wrapped in spicy robin red paste so pungent it should come with a disclaimer. If this didn’t attract barbel, then frankly nothing short of offering them a mortgage would.

Despite a chilly wind that tried its best to shear my ears off, the water temperature was surprisingly warm for the night. Warm enough, you’d think, for a barbel to at least consider wafting past. But this is the Warwickshire Avon, and expecting a barbel on demand is like expecting punctuality from public transport: admirable in theory, but fundamentally ridiculous.

I lobbed the rig out gracefully in my head, less so in reality and settled in. Half an hour passed. Nothing. Not even a sarcastic knock from a chub. So I reeled in, reloaded the feeder, filled it with enough krill mush to wake the ancestors, and sent it back out again.

Then finally movement. A twitch. Another. And then a proper pull-round that made my heart leap into the “we might actually be doing this” zone. I struck, made contact, felt a brief pulse of resistance, and for one glorious moment imagined Barbara herself gliding towards me in regal fury.

But then it wriggled.

Not a big wriggle. A modest, sheepish one. Up came a chublet a fish so small it should have been wearing armbands. It swung in through the air looking absolutely mortified, and if I’m honest, so was I. Still, proof the bait was presented properly, which these days is a small but meaningful victory. I congratulated myself in the way only a desperate man can.

Another twenty minutes ticked by. The temperature plummeted like my enthusiasm, the sky cleared, and the river began to freeze my fingerprints off one by one. At that point I decided enough was enough. Fishing is supposed to be relaxing, not a test of frostbite resistance.

I trudged back to the car, my breath fogging the air like a steam engine on overtime, and drove home with all the dignity of a man whose grand adventure had yielded a single, socially awkward chublet.

Mill Cottage Eardiston - Teme, Thrips and Time Warps

There are decisions in life that one looks back upon with misty-eyed fondness, and there are decisions that cause the Wife to raise an eyebrow so sharply it threatens to detach from her face. 

Booking Mill Cottage on the River Teme, without engaging the underused decision-making portion of my brain, fell firmly into the latter category. In my defence, it was cheap “very cheap” ( a weekly shop in the Newey Household) and in the heat of a mid-week whim, that became the sole criterion for success.

Only later, once the confirmation email had already nestled smugly in my inbox, did the Wife remind me:

(a) “You’ve stayed there before, you plank, (was March 2010 apparently)

(b) “I vowed never to go again,” and

(c) “You’ve booked Utah bleeding Saints in Birmingham on Saturday with Steveo, remember, did you even catch any fish last time ?”

Ah yes. That, sh*t. The weekend, thus, was shaping up to be more convoluted than an eel knot on a cold morning.

Mill Cottage & Ben back in 2010

The cottage itself is a curious relic. A time capsule. A portal to a period when brown wallpaper was fashionable, electricity was optional, and furniture was apparently designed by someone who had only ever seen chairs described in writing. 

The décor appears not to have been updated since the late 1950s (I jest) possibly even since the Domesday Book, in which the mill was first mentioned. The monks of St Mary’s in Worcester might well have written, “Mol De Medewye bring your own firewood and expect a few spiders.”

The history is genuinely impressive. Medieval monks, meadows, a seventeen-foot waterwheel, and the Moore family milling away for generations. 

But standing in the living room, staring at a TV the size of a large lunchbox with no HDMI port, I found myself pondering a modern mystery:

Why, in the name of Saint Barbel, have the owners not spent thirty quid on a tin of paint? , a couple of hundred on a decent TV, and update the furniture. 

A few upgrades and they could charge double. Triple, even. As it stands, the place feels like the sort of summerhouse a 50's eccentric might have used for smoking a pipe, writing letters to The Times, and accidentally inventing tetanus.

But there we were. Me and Sam. The boy was off on a teacher training day his, not mine and he was positively buzzing about fishing from the cottage’s garden and having a curry. A proper stretch of Teme too, the sort of water that looks gorgeous even when you know full well you’re going to blank harder than Rachel from Accounts who forgot her calculator. (AGAIN)

Complicating matters, Thursday night I had to sprint straight from work to a Fatboy Slim gig in Coventry because obviously the best preparation for a weekend of fishing is an evening of shouting, sweating, and pretending I’m not too old for this sort of thing. 

Which left me roughly four and a half minutes to prepare the tackle. I flung together a selection of rods, reels, floats, feeders, baits, and things that appeared to be fishing-related but might actually have been household items.

The plan, such as it was:

Arrive Friday at 2.00pm. Fish. Curry and a pint in Tenbury Wells for dinner (still a little run down, bless it). Fish much of Saturday. Dash home. Utah Saints. Collapse.

Phew.

Now tucked into the north-west corner of Worcestershire a spot so politely unassuming that even the sat-nav clears its throat before announcing it lies Tenbury Wells only a short drive away from the Mill Cottage. It’s the quiet achiever of market towns, the sort that doesn’t bother puffing out its chest because it knows full well you’ll fall for it eventually… like a trout mesmerised by a suspiciously shiny spinner.

Once a Victorian spa resort (because in those days everyone thought standing in sulphurous water would cure literally anything), Tenbury now lounges elegantly by the River Teme, framed by hop fields, cider-apple orchards, and countryside so wide-skied you could pitch a blimp in it and no one would bat an eyelid. Except maybe Dave, the bloke who watches everything from his front step and has opinions about cloud shapes. 

The Georgian high street is all indie shops and artisan markets, the sort that make you accidentally buy chutney you absolutely do not need. A 1937 regal Cinema, a glorious art deco number that shows arthouse films, jazz nights, and occasionally a movie so obscure I’m not entirely convinced it isn’t just a screensaver. 

Then there are the Pump Rooms, a slice of Victorian eccentricity that looks like the sort of building you’d expect a time-travelling vicar to emerge from, clutching a pamphlet on the spiritual dangers of trousers. Food-wise, you’re sorted: cracking coffee, cakes large enough to be classified as architecture, curry houses, pubs, jobs a good'un. oh and even a Michelin-style restaurant lurking nearby, poised to surprise you with foam. There is always foam !!. 

Tenbury blends affordability, friendliness and proper countryside charm, with scenery so postcard-pretty you half expect a sheep to wander through holding a tiny enamel teapot. Just make sure you do your flood-homework this is a river town, after all, and the Teme occasionally likes to remind everyone who’s boss....

...you see one big problem !! most people in the Tenbury Wells cannot afford insurance the premiums are too high because flooding is so frequent (7 times in 2 years in recent apparently). Businesses and homeowners have adapted accordingly, placing electrical sockets high up, not storing things on the floor and making makeshift flood defences of their own.

The river hadn't flooded the town thankfully during Storm Claudia however temperatures had plummeted faster than the country's confidence in the Labour Party, and frankly expectations were low. Very low. “Bottom-of-the-Teme-in-winter” low. But it wasn’t really about the fish. It was about some proper father-son bonding time, a chance to unwind, and an opportunity for me to once again question every logistical choice I’ve made in adulthood.

And, if the Teme fancied being generous, maybe just maybe a fish or two would find its way into the landing net rather than laughing at us from the murky depths. 

Stranger Things (new series out very soon) have happened. After all, I’d managed to book a medieval mill, a Norman-era historical site, and see two dance-music legends in the space of forty-eight hours.

If that isn’t proof that miracles occur, I don’t know what is.

Now It was one of those mornings where even the river looked like it wanted to stay in bed, still sulking after the recent flood and charging through the valley like it had somewhere better to be. 

Sam and I had barely said our hellos to the owners before we were poking around the swims outside the mill cottage, pretending to be seasoned explorers rather than two blokes who were really wondering where the least treacherous place to fall in might be. 

The BAA stretch looked promising until we realised that accessing most of the pegs would require the agility of a mountain goat and the insurance policy of a stuntman; the banks were so slippery that one wrong step would’ve had me auditioning for a You’ve Been Framed compilation. 

So, with dignity intact well, mostly we retreated to the mill cottage like the sensible anglers we occasionally pretend to be. 

We gave the slack by the weir a good go into dusk, but the fish were having none of it, probably laughing at us from somewhere deep in the turbo-charged current, so it was off to the pub for morale repair and then a curry for medicinal purposes. 

The frost, meanwhile, clung to the ground like an over-keen limpet, the big hill downstream blocking out what little sun there was, and the water sat at a balmy 5.5 degrees, which is apparently ideal if you’re a penguin. 

Morning came, brutally, and with it the maggot feeder approach tiny hooks, dainty tactics and me squinting at red maggots like a jeweller evaluating gemstones, while Sam tried his best to appear enthusiastic despite the weather reminding him why he prefers fishing in conditions that don’t resemble a survival documentary. 

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for a grayling to slip up, confirming that something out there was still alive, and between showers, shivers, and the sort of toe-curling wind that makes you question your hobbies, we scraped together eight or nine more grayling and a couple of trout from the weir pool slack that clearly mistook the lobworm for an all-you-can-eat buffet sign.

By 3:30pm we were trudging back to the car, damp, cold, smelling faintly of maggots, but victorious in the sense that we hadn’t blanked, and I shot off home so I could go see Utah Saints DJ’ing, because apparently I am, against all common sense, still pretending I’m 25. After all that, I need a rest—but knowing me, I’ll be back on another river next week, complaining just as loudly and loving every second of it.