Tuesday, 18 February 2025

Warwickshire Avon - Holts and Hulks

Another day in the office, another half a dollar in the coffers I fancied trying for a chub on the way home. An overnight hard frost and the river was still pretty high I still reckoned the chub would be biting and luckily I know a few slacks on this stretch.

The river after being a nice tinge of green had coloured up a little more after the rain so it was out with the cheesepaste. I concocted a new batch recently and this an albino shrek colour was also made a little softer which I'm sure helps with hook-ups. 

With the river cold any cheesepaste that contains fat will obviously harden in texture so you need to make sure it's not too hard to begin with. This batch was 2 parts Danish blue, 1 part grated mature cheddar, some shortcrust pastry mix and some Dynamite Baits, garlic and cheese liquid attractant. There is no recipe for this as you often have to judge the quantities when you are making it.

The last chub I caught on this bait nearly took the rod in the bite was so violent. 

A good fifteen minutes in a swim primed with some liquidised bread I was getting ready to move to the next swim, and them Whammm !!! the elevated quivertip jumped in to life and continued on going. 

I love watching a float go under but Wow !!! this really was something else.

I don't fish that far out using cheesepaste if I mould it directly over the hook, I more often than not fish near snags and an underarm cast is all that is required. If I want to cast it any distance I use some of my 3D printed paste cages. I prefer to mount directly on a big hook mind you.  

Anyway back to the fishing, there is a curfew on this stretch but enough time to try and winkle out a chub. Well an hour and a half, which isn't much in the scheme of things, but when the river is cold, very cold and a river that is boiling and swirly those slacker areas are where the fish are likely to be sitting. 

Still it was a rather nice day with clear skies and some sun for once so it was quite pleasant being sat by the river waiting for a fish to appear. I had a particular swim in mind to fish where last time in the deep trough I managed to catch two chub in quick succession after only being there for 15 minutes or so.


That swim was unfishable really, properly banging through where I bet I didn't even have any leads in my armoury that would sufficiently hold bottom.Thankfully on a bend (Sean's Favorite Peg) there is a couple of slacks that could be fished.

Both with a satisfying donk of the small bomb It was fingers and toes crossed something would turn up to bite despite the very winterty looking river. A good twenty minutes in the first swim I moved upstream and went to fish another slack where ones peace was interrupted !!

Now Shrek is an anti-social ogre who loves the solitude of his swamp and enjoys fending off mobs and intruders. One day, his life is interrupted after the dwarfish Lord Farquaad of Duloc exiles a vast number of fairy tale creatures, who inadvertently end up in the swamp, for me this was another resident Otter, where I assume there must be a few on this stretch, as I saw two together at the lower end of the stretch recently. 

I've certainly seen more this season than I ever have done, even though they have been there since I had this book many many moons ago. I had a few years break from this stretch because ones barbel returns were very few and far between, however more recently seems to be the odd one coming out in matches, and also many are lost to the inadequate tackle of the 1.5lb hook link users, so they are still about.

This Otter hadn't a care in the world though and after appearing over at the far bank it swam straight in to the drink and proceeded to meander downstream fully aware I was there. Anyway dusk was just round the corner where to cut a long story short, unsurprisingly I blanked. Not a chublet pull or anything despite the bait being presented nicely. 

Oh well I tried, I could do no more than that !!, I've a morning off tomorrow, I fancy trying for a Roach down the Warwickshire Stour to try and avenge losing that PB beater !! . The weather is getting milder too, I might try and see if I can get closer to Barbara the barbel 👀😀

Sunday, 16 February 2025

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.18

I'm all for making life easy for the angler. (God knows, I need all the help I can get.) But I would respectfully suggest that the electronic lure invented by a biologist at the Severn-Trent Water Authority has gone a bit too far in that it's far too good.

First of all, the lure hypnotises fish with electronic pulses in tune with their brain waves, such as they are. When they get close enough, its power locks their muscles rigid, leaving them paralysed in the water for the angler to net at leisure. 

Not only that, the lure can be tuned to different wavelengths to attract different kinds of fish: eels home in on three pulses a second, pike on ten and carp on twenty. 

The biologist, Dr Richard Spray, pulled in 169 pike in 22 hours from a two-mile stretch of water during one of his experiments. And then went on to work out the wavelengths for other fish, including trout.

Dr Spray sees the main application of the lure in fishery management. But if lures tuned to salmon and trout ever get on the market, there'll be a lot of non-management persons wandering the bank in the dead of night with a warmed-up and unlighted Land Rover parked under the trees.

Is not the lure the answer to every angler's prayer? Dr Spray thinks not. 'It'll take the fun out of fishing,' he says, 'so I don't believe the ordinary angler will want to use it.'

Such faith in human nature is touching, but can you see the average cack-handed tiddler snatcher passing up the chance to sit in the pub and boast: 'Yerss... Not a bad morning. Shifted 169 pike first thing, then beamed into about 450 bream and finished up with 50-odd carp from the pool. Not a patch on last week, mind you...'"

Anybody getting down to the water behind that lad I would be on a hiding to nothing. Talk about first up, best dressed. Even if the first angler returned the fish in double- quick time, to have the 'fluence put on them by the next comer, it's doubtful if the fish themselves would think much of the performance:

'I'm getting a bit fed up with this, Simon. Five times I've been beamed up this morning. Not had a chance to eat a thing.'

'Me too, Mick. Ooh, me 'ead..."

Perhaps Dr Spray would consider re-directing his research into the brain waves of anglers. Not only could local publicans beam out the message that their establishments were open for quenching the thirsts of the gentry, but they could use the pulses to guide anglers unfamiliar with the area to their very doors.

Or perhaps not. Surveys have shown that the average angler knows immediately when it's opening time, whether he's carrying a watch or not. Something to do with his biological rhythms. And he seldom has trouble locating the nearest boozer: he just follows the pulsing in his nose.

There's also the danger that such a sophisticated system of mind control could be misappropriated by the anglers' Nearest and Dearest to call them back from the bank and home for their tea. What a horrifying prospect: hundreds of zombified anglers packing up and lurching slowly along the bank, arms stretched out in front of them. Walking straight past the pub and chanting: 'I come, my love. I hear... I obey...'

No, it wouldn't do at all. In fact there's a deal of danger in any interruption of the angler's mental functions when he's near the water, as Doc Thumper will confirm.

Doc lives on the Thames, lucky lad, and can fish from the bottom of his garden. When he's on standby, just in case he's wandered along the bank, he carries a bleeper which allows Misses Doc to warn him of any emergency calls.

This worked fine, until one day Doc was having trouble with a chub which had made for a half-sunken tree. He was balanced precariously on the sticky-out end of the trunk, trying to turn the chub's head, when the bleeper went off in his pocket and imparted a severe shock to the system. What followed was not a comfortable experience, but it did lead Doc to one important discovery, that, unlike Dr Spray's lure, the common-or-garden bleeper does not work six feet under water !! 😛

Be careful out there chaps, the banks are muddy, the river cold, don't go falling in there if you can help it. !!!


Anyway I was back out again on the syndicate stretch this time with a pint and a half of bronze maggots to see if I was missing a track, oh and to see if I could catch something other than chub. The rain was easing up and that lovely tinge of green was gradually turning in to weak tea as the session played out. The bites were at a premium too with some small roach caught and then after a couple of hours with my hands now pretty cold, I managed a couple of chub must have ventured out from their hidey-hole, and succumbed to the maggots.

They came on subsequent casts dragging bottom however no more showed and after another 40 odd minutes trotting with even the roach now suspicious in their absence, it was time for the off. A very cold morning indeed, the river however was a tad warmer than I thought, as it was 6.1 degrees, maybe that rain wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.  

Saturday, 15 February 2025

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.17

Well the weather really was pants when I woke up, cold, dull and rain rain rain rain. It was quite nice having a rare lie in and the morning passed rather quickly I must admit. Thankfully the rain eased up and with the Wife and kids happy to have a chill day in the afternoon I was getting restless, so there was only one way to get over that, and that was to go fishing.

I decided to go and fish one of my local haunts where the Avon is at its smallest and also with plenty of features, the Chub can be found swimming around the snaggy waters. 

That was my plan however as I was nearing the venue the bleeding road was shut the access now restricted with heavy machinery, a dug up road and an earth pile you'd need an oxygen mask to negotiate. Oh well, so it was off to the syndicate stretch instead where after getting through 2 sets of temporary traffic light eventually I managed to get to the river.

It didn't fish at all well last time where I blanked but this was another day and I had a new batch of cheesepaste that the chub needed to try.


In the winter I really do have confidence fishing cheesepaste and these days I tend to put a piece folded around the hook rather than add some to one of my 3D printed paste cages. I make the cheesepaste a little softer than I usually do however it firms up a little when it's been in cold water for a while.

Anyway a roving session spending no more than 15 minutes in each swim....


It didn't take long to get a bite either when a primed swim produced this hard fighting 4lber that gave me a right run around. By now the drizzle was getting worse thankfully and a bit of a surprise because I caught another chub in the next swim after the bait had been out for short time. 

This time the fish must have hooked itself because the bite was barbel esk and  if I wasn't watching the rod it would have been in the water, it was that powerful. 

No little taps or pulls, the rod just went into meltdown in a split second !! 💪👌👏


This was only a 3lber or so but most welcome I must admit because the weather wasn't very agreeable at all. Now I did think I was on to something with those relatively quick bites, but sadly I peaked too soon because another 4 or 5 swims fished, not a sausage, nada, zilch !!

With an hour left till dusk the mist descended and the drizzle turned in to light rain so I decided to call it a day and return tomorrow with the trotting gear. I've some bronze maggots and fancied trying something new on this stretch rather than trot with bread all the time. I'm just praying that the river won't rise that much as it's a nice level at the minute.  

Friday, 14 February 2025

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.16

So the 5lb Untrodden chub hunt continues with another short after work session to try and winkle out a chub that is over that magic barrier. Ok I've caught bigger chub on the Warwickshire Avon with the biggest being 6lb 2 ounces not far from here, but there is something special about ticking off that milestone capture on a relatively un-fished stretch. 

It's still nippy out there with water temperatures still below 6 degrees, and as someone who accidently cut a 1.5inch tramline in the side of my head and now sporting a No.1, that thermal hat was definitely needed 🌃. Now the chub is a most handsome fish with its red-tinged fins, large scales, dark brown on the back, lighter brown on the flanks and a dead white belly, oh and who could forget the bronzed gills plates. 

I like the build of chub best though, those hefty shoulders and tapering rounded body simply shout power and speed as you look at him.

Now in days gone by, you will put a chub back into the water without a second thought. There is no temptation to keep it for the pot, apparently they taste like blotting paper and tin-tacks cooked in rancid margarine. 

In Britain today coarse fishers return their catch. This is not surprising, you see apart from the increase in popularity and resulting pressure on water space, tastes have changed with changing social conditions.

Besides many these days rely on convenience and many wouldn't fancy, or have time for, dressing pike or skinning eels; all the fish you need are easy to cook and readily available in the local supermarket. Nevertheless, many fishes seldom seen the marketplace are valuable as food, indeed less affluent societies they would be eaten with brisk and cheerful readiness.

At the moment though, the chub are safe down at the Untrodden 😁, even if the further expected tax hikes from Rachel from Accounts are going to kick in. we are thankfully blessed with Zander in the Shires, they are literally chalk and cheese where food palates are concerned. Chub the Spam, Zander the dry aged galician blond.

Anyway to the fishing, a well planned military operation this, you see I'll bait one, two, three, four, FIVE swims with some liquidised bread and then fish them in to dusk and in to dark to try and winkle out a decent Chub. 

So walk to the top of the stretch, make my way down baiting the swims and then work my way back up. If a chub is there they show themselves rather quickly, so 15 minutes biteless ?, it's time to move on.  

They are tactics that do seem to work and confidence is the key isn't it. So that's why for this session despite making up another batch of continuing festering cheesepaste, it was back out with the ever reliable bread, and try and put that plan into action. 


The plan wasn't going very well though because swim after swim that quiver didn't move an inch. The colour looked perfect for a bite and yet the fish were having other ideas. Dusk is usually when the fish come out from their hidey-holes so I settled in a swim that usually that gives a bite, but dusk came and went and the quiver now illuminated with torch light didn't jump in to life like I wanted it too.

Bites usually come quick if there is a fish in the swim so I gave it another fifteen minutes and headed up the stretch to fish those swims that were primed at the start of the session. I get impatient during these short smash and grab sessions and 

I had a curfew to leave which was 6.50pm and that came around much quicker than I thought and another 3 swims covered without even a nibble whatsoever. I changed to meat for the last twenty minutes but even that was untouched by the piscine brethren.

A moving bait has been doing the business for me and others and with the weekend on the way maybe that is the way to avoid a blank. A blank is rare on this stretch to be fair, oh well, on to the next one !!

Monday, 10 February 2025

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.15

A tale of two halves this one, you see after getting bored watching motionless pike floats for a couple of hours in a couple of swims it was time to do some trotting. The colour was perfect for trotting bread for chub and I did think if the pike fishing wasn't all that (ok I wasn't at it that long 👀) I might as well bring the 15ft rod equipped with a big stick float .

Thankfully the wind had died down because the wind amplifies the cold and when you're handling mashed bread as feed those fingers can get very cold, and there is really nothing more than cold fingers when you are fishing. 



I really need to give maggots a go because Nic from avon Angling has been having some cracking session on the Avon fishing maggots and in his words "far better handling maggots in the cold than wet bread"

My fingers were fine for a good couple of hours trotting though, I think I picked a good morning, but like I said I'm sure the lack of wind helped. I had a swim in mind at the start of the session but that was tanking through and hook anything decent it would one hell of a job to bring the fish upstream. 


That peg might be better fished with the waggler as the cover is over at the far-side so in the end I decided to fish a lovely trotting peg that to be honest, had perfect pace. I had a pike rod just to the left of me and that had some interest a good hour after being out, when a 5 lber picked up the smelt and hook off it with it like a rocket. 

At one point I had to bully it away from a snag chub'esk but the hook pulled, which ain't a bad thing I suppose.


The stick float was going down nicely however it took a good while to get a bite but then out of the blue the float buried at the end of the run, and I lifted into a solid fish. Such a great way to fish for chub and after plodding around I teased it upstream and in to the landing net.

Another fish came soon after, this one a lovely solid Avon chub that weighed 4lb on the nose and a decent fight on the float set-up. I thought I would catch a couple more but no, the swim went quiet and a good hour without a bite I decided to fish another swim upstream to try and catch a last gasp pike.


You see all of a sudden my fingers and hands started to get unpleasantly cold. The wind had picked up a bit and I'm sure that was the cause of it. You are anchored to one spot though that doesn't help things and that's why I'm a roving angler at heart I suppose. Could I do a 5 hour session trotting in the cold, probably not. 

The last swim well those pike baits were never touched sadly but a couple of nice chub, which makes an ok session in my book.


I've get to catch a 5lb chub off the new stretch, 4lb 14oz the biggest if I recall, which I caught on the first go here. I've seen one that was massive and looked a 6 lber so I'm sure there are some biggest fish to be had. 

I just need to be in the right time at the right place. I'll keep plugging away though I'm sure one will slip up sometime. Banks to myself, quiet and plenty to go at, and with some nice fish to boot, I'm liking it down here. 

Sunday, 9 February 2025

Warwickshire Stour - Shoulders and Shuftiscopes

So with the loss of that PB beating Roach in the back of my mind I decided to revisit the stretch for another go to see if that roach was home and well, to see if I could catch it this time. All very pie in the sky I suppose but you never know.

The Stour was cold, very cold, the water too, because that had dropped to 4.7 degrees which could explain why the bites were far harder to come by. 

Obviously I started off in the swim where I lost the big'un but a good 45 minutes in there with only a few minnow nibbles it was time to get on the rove. 

The Stour is rarely clear but without any meaningful rain for a while in one of the swims I could see a metre down at least which is probably why from swim to swim, there was nothing really doing at all. 



The colour was perfect though so I decided to concentrate on the chub fishing instead and fish tight to cover, snags and rafts to see if I could drop a bait in the right place at the right time.

It took a good while to be honest with maybe the 6th swim where a bite on the drop came and then after a minute or so a proper chub bite where I was in to a solid fish. Bread did the trick again, the most reliable chub bait ? well I think so. 


It gave me a bit of a run around and I could see it trying to bury its head in an undercut bank and then it tried to get in to some dead reeds right by my feet.  Dirty tactics but then I wouldn't expect anything less from chub this size, they are not stupid.

A nice solid fish for the Stour and really big shoulders on it, a proper bully I'd imagine and it fought really in the clear water. Anyway a small chublet from the same swim and that was my lot.  I even fished the first swim last again and swapped between bread and lobworm, but not even a bite.Tough going actually, but it has been barassic of late to I bet many fish are holding up trying to ride the temperature drop. I would if I were them anyway 👤

Friday, 7 February 2025

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.14

This car was wobbling on buckled wheels up the road, and bits kept dropping off it. It stopped on the white line, bang in the middle of the road, and the driver got out. He could get out easily because, as soon as the car stopped, the offside door fell off. 

The driver stood by the car, traffic whizzing past on either side, saying plaintively, 'Where am I? I think I've had an accident.' He had, poor lad. Two miles back. In a daze he'd driven on, then realised something had happened, and stopped. As soon as the kindly locals took him in hand, he went to pieces, trembling violently and flopping about all over the place. Delayed shock, that was. It took several brandies to get him on an even keel.

His condition was a classic example of the effect a sudden traumatic experience can have on the nervous system. I mention it to lead up to the fact that the average angler has at least one traumatic experience every outing, and therefore often returns home in a state of delayed shock.

Signs of delayed shock in an angler are an unsteady gait, difficulty in focusing, and a tendency to fall down if left unsupported for any length of time. If more wives, girlfriends and other interested parties would recognise the symptoms, there would be an immediate reduction in the number of battered anglers.

The mere sight of an angry lady person in curlers and dressing gown can induce secondary shock and send the poor lad into a catatonic trance, an easy victim for the coal shovel or whatever means of wifely therapy is about to be applied. 

Another school of thought has it that such a sight can result in the angler immediately sobering up - sorry, immediately recovering his equilibrium though such cases are relatively rare. 

The traumatic experiences of angling are too many and varied to list more than a few, but the following examples should serve to illustrate the commoner causes of shock:

  1. He catches a record pike. 
  2. He misses a record pike.
  3. He catches a pike which is nothing to get excited about, but which bites his finger off.
  4. He catches the first decent-sized catfish of his life, which frightens him almost to death. (Analysis of anglers' reactions to such a confrontation - that enormous mouth, those evil little eyes, those horrible waving whiskers - show that the shock to the system is the equivalent of opening the front door and finding the mother- in-law standing on the step.)
  5. He catches 300lb of bream and strains himself lifting the keep net.
  6. He catches 300 drams of gudgeon (a personal best) and they all swim out through the holes in the net. At the end of the day, intent on showing off his catch, he gives the net a titanic heave. And falls flat on his back.
  7. He falls down the bank into ice-cold water. Not so bad if it's soft water, but very painful in hard water areas.
  8. He falls down the bank, misses the nasty cold hard water and hits a nice warm rock. Unfortunately, there are no soft rocks.
  9. He wins the match for his team and is beaten senseless by thumps on the back.
  10. He loses the match for his team and is beaten senseless by thumps all over. Not to mention being perforated by rod rests and having ill-tempered pike stuffed down his trousers by ill-tempered team-mates.
  11. He wins the match and is bought drinks all night. 
  12. He loses the match and has to buy drinks all night.
  13. He loses a HUGE Roach

These examples of just some of the hazards an angler faces will hopefully get him a more sympathetic reception on his return to the old homestead. You must remember that an angler in delayed shock is like a sleepwalker: on no account must he be rudely awakened or upset in any way.


Anyway to the fishing, well I fancied a Warwickshire Avon chub for this session so to the syndicate stretch forthwith. Friday afternoon was out of the question so if I didn't get out then I wouldn't get that much needed fishing fix. The sun had been strong throughout the day and it was pleasant working from the home office which is a rarity but with gear packed during lunchtime I really was desperate to go !!.

So as per the norm is seems, could I winkle out a nice chub in a couple of hours ?

Well it didn't take long you see the second swim I fished I managed a rather nice 4lber that hit the rather large piece of bread on the drop in a liquidised bread primed swim, where after that initial indication the tip jumped in to life and a hard fighting fish was on.


As the light I fished two more swims without a bite and swapped between cheesepaste and bread but it was the bread that did the business in the next swim which had also been primed. A slack right out in front looked perfect for bite and sure enough, after slowly dropping the rig in to the slack under a dim torch light, a few minutes later an unmistakable chub bite where this time I think the fish hooked itself.

It tried to get under my feet straight away but I managed to steer it away from the snags ok and it was in the net soon enough. A solid 3lber this, so well worth coming out to fish for a couple of hours.


I also wanted to try out a couple of new purchases, a cheapo <£15 LED zoom torch which is really quite ridiculous for the money. Almost like a searchlight it's that bright and the range is mad and I've bought an obscene amount of torches over the years.  

The battery on full power I'd imagine wouldn't last a huge amount of time, but still for the outlay it is cracking value. The other purchase, well that was some LED interior lamps that replace the standard bulbs in the Jimny which were not better than candlelight 😁 

Literally night and day as you can see here, the outlay, well a fiver so I'm well happy easy to fit and should give that much needed light I need when I'm loading the car after a fishing session. So another successful smash and grab session. 

There are some much bigger chub here that I've not managed to catch yet, but they are swimming around as I've seen them, so hopefully it won't be long when one will slip up and grace ones net. The river is in lovely condition at the minute I'm just hoping the expected rain will be kind to us, the count down to the close season is well on the way after all. 

Thursday, 6 February 2025

The River Leam - Ogres and Organography

Angling is no occupation for the hypersensitive.

Let's face it. Some of the things we take for granted as a normal part of angling are pretty revolting.

Handling maggots. Used as we are to them as bait, it's always a shock to come across them in their wild state when we pick up a dead bird or mouse. That horrible, slimy, heaving mass, straight out of a Hammer film-surely they can't be the cousins of the little beauties we play with so tenderly every weekend?

And as for the old match anglers who kept maggies warm under their tongues in cold weather-how did they do it, Stanley?

No wonder we get black looks in the pub when we've spent an hour poking around reeking ditches for bloodworms, turning over cowpats in the hope of finding something tempting underneath, or spiking on lengths of smelly fishguts and nauseous squid.

But hold on. Hang about. Wait a minute.

Perhaps it is not we who are revolting after all. Perhaps everybody else is too refined. We do, after all, live in an age dedicated to removing all traces of our animality.

We spray ourselves all over with stuff to take away our cosy human smell. (When I say we, I don't mean us, of course. I mean them.) We powder ourselves from top to bottom, and further down than that. We shave our armpits. 

We are scared of using a toothpaste that doesn't promise a tingling fresh ring of thing in the close-up zone. We take tablets to rid our breath of unpleasant things like the smell of scotch. Our socks are treated with chemicals that leave our old plates smelling like violets. After every shave we slap on stuff that makes us smell like the Queen of the Fairies. And I do mean fairies.

Our food is bought ready scrubbed, peeled, homogenised, shrink- wrapped and unrecognisable. Even the flavour has been removed so that we don't actually taste anything resembling something that once grew in the earth or walked about on it. How many hausfraus nowadays buy a chicken with its feathers on and its guts still inside, or buy a bunny with its coat on?

Our beer has been rationalised out of all recognition. Of course it never goes off; there's nothing in the plastic gnat's hiss that can go off.

So perhaps the angler now stands for something more than just the quiet waterside philosopher. Perhaps, in staying close to the earth, in keeping contact with the creatures which swim, walk, fly, or crawl over it, we are preserving something for future generations: the ability to operate as a human animal and not as a deodorised, computerised, compliant zombie.

Perhaps we are the last of the ogres in the land of the pygmies, and perhaps we ought not to give up our ogrehood without a fight. There are very few of us left with this gift-this very precious gift-of being so thoroughly, unutterably, unashamedly and irretrievably... revolting.


Anyway to the fishing, after another day in the office after a short detour I had a couple of hours fishing time before I had to head off home. Timing, preparation and making every bite count is everything to maximise fishing time however that didn't get off with a good start. 

 You see after a bite within a few minutes of putting out a groundbait filled small feeder and a thumbnail piece of bread in to a >6ft deep swim, I struck in to a solid fish that within a second the rod went went solid. Damn It, a SNAG !!

Thankfully it was only the light hook-link so that was sorted quickly and the rig cast out again. Another bite came quite quickly casting a couple of meters to the right and I was hooked in to a small chub. Not the biggest of fish for this stretch but a blank avoided. 


As the light was going the first of those sharp roach pulls which I can only assume were from small fish because nothing materialised in to a strikable bite. 

A switch to a lobworm tail didn't have any interest whatsoever and oddly as the torch was needed to illuminate the rod tip those bites tailed off. 

I had half an hour fishing time left but after casting straight in to a tree 🙈 where I got the whole lot snagged I decided to call it a day rather than set-up again under torchlight. 

Sadly none of the big roach showed up that swim here however next time I'll try some more swims I think. A lovely little river though, my sort of stamping ground. 

There is so much to go at and so little fishing time that is half the problem, but these little rivers I love to death despite the often mediocre returns, it's when those surprises turn up all these blank sessions and those fish nothing to write home about are quickly forgotten !!

On to the next one which I think might well be down at the Untrodden as George managed some nice chub at the same time I heading home, and with a hard frost overnight I doubt much else will be biting. 

Monday, 3 February 2025

Warwickshire Stour - Mendaciloquence and Melancholy

The Warwickshire Avon was still banging through so I fancied a few bites for this morning session so I decided to head to the Stour. I can be there in less than 20 minutes and there is so much to go at with typical small river fishing.

This particular stretch is match fish from time to time and that often means that the fish get bigger and bigger. Those half pints of left over maggots and groundbait deposited in the river at the end of the match only adds to that.

The river was still high and pacey in most swims however I would be fishing the slacks with my light feeder set-up and obviously rove from swim to swim if bites were not forthcoming. I need not have worried though as I couldn't believe how many bites I was getting. The fish were up for a feed. The set-up was a tiny cage feeder with some liquidised bread and some black roach groundbait for some pungency and a thumbnail piece of bread on the hook, or maggots. 

I stuck it in the first swim far longer than I usually so because every cast of the feeder the fish were straight on the bait. They were roach and a reasonable stamp too however that all that seemed to be in the swim so I decided to go and have a nose at some other swims. 

As anglers you get that feeling when a swim just looked perfect and needed some attention and the next swim was exactly that. A fallen tree upstream and a rather large back eddy was just downstream of that which visually looked like a washing machine at the end of its spin cycle.

The bread bait went out and after a few minutes a couple of pulls on the 3/4 oz tip which were unstrikeable eventually a full on bite developed and I hooked in to a fish. I knew exactly what it was from the initial fight, it was a BIG ROACH !! so I treated it with kid gloves for a while with my heart in my mouth, but then it was trying to get in to the dead reeds right by my feet which I had to steer it away from.

Then is popped up to the surface and WTF !! easily the biggest roach I've seen in my life and not only that it was a minter too, almost like an AI version of what you would want a big roach to look like, it was HUGE. I got the landing net and knelt down to scoop it in the landing net, but this roach had other ideas because one more headshake the hook and fish parted and I saw it swim away back to its watery depths. OH FFS !!! WTF, DID THAT JUST HAPPEN !!! you can imagine the expletives 🙈

A PB beater for sure and my PB is 1lb and 12oz's from the canal and this one was way bigger than that. These are predated on, so a roach like that is as rare as rocking horse poo and even if they do get to a decent size, my best off the Stour is 1lb 8 ounces they are usually quite tatty, with plenty of stories to tell.

With that fish lost I carried on fishing and managed a couple of nice chub and some other smaller roach before the bites dried up leaving me to go and fish some more swims. I returned to the swim for the last half an hour where I caught a small dace and that was that.

Now ok I've lost plenty of nice fish before but the lost of this fish I played in my mind over and over again to see what I could have done differently. These GURU feeder special hooks I've been using when they are locked on they are not coming out, so God knows what happened. Was the fish only lightly hooked ? should I have played it harder to set the hook better ? should I take up Golf ?

At least I know where it lives though so will give the swim and the stretch much more attention now. I still cannot believe I lost it, but then that's fishing for you. It's the fact that these fish rarely show so my next chance might be this time next year. Gutted is an understatement !!!


In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger "I'll be back"
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