Now as others see us, is there such a thing as an average angler? Difficult question. But apparently a survey has shown that the composite angler is more likely to be under thirty-five than over, has a higher-than-average income, owns or has the use of a car, and spends hundreds of pounds a year on tackle, bait, permits and travel.
He goes fishing, it says here, for adventure, excitement and mental relaxation. A minority of anglers, possibly the honest ones, replied that they went fishing to get away from the wife. The composite angler will sometimes take his son with him but not, if he can help it, his wife or daughter.
Fishing is the main purpose of the trip:eating and drinking are normally the only other activities indulged in. (Perhaps night fishing was not included in the survey.) So the wives left at home at least have the consolation that hubby isn't getting up to much.
The wives, instead, may have been quite pleased to have the husbands out from under their feet, and happy about 'the sport's beneficial effect on the husbands' general demeanour'.
The only drawback about that opinion is that all who agreed with it were men.
The social scientists conducting the survey summed it up thus:
'The current norm of the angling sub-culture appears to run contrary to current social trends."
Which, elaborated on, meant that they thought the composite angler to be selfish, self-centred, anti-social and indifferent to concepts of sex equality, togetherness and family-shared recreation.
What a thing to say...
A change of scenery was in order for this three hour sessions in not very good conditions (windy, with mostly blue skies and sun), you see after waking up to the howling wind at early 'oclock, I was lying in bed wondering where to go fishing.
'I tell you what, I'll go to the area I caught some of my biggest chub from. A Warwickshire Avon PB of 6lb 2oz, but also my biggest fish on the float which went 5lb 10oz and multiple 5lbers also graced my net over time I fished the now defunct small syndicate which was opposite the club stretch I'd fish for this session, however there was one big problem !!!
A pollution incident back in June 2023 wiped out a whole massive area of the Warwickshire Avon and some of the biggest fish sadly lost their lives due to no fault of their own. A angler who used to fish the same areas as me witnessed the devastation and was brought to tears having to look at countless carcasses of big fish who sadly didn't make it.
"Heartbreaking 😞"
There does seem the odd half decent fishing coming out mind you, which I assume could well have been because of the fish that migrated from up and down the river, from areas that's didn't feel the full force of the defilement of the water quality.
To be honest it was more of a nose than anything else and a reccy for a potential session in to dusk after work. I had my quiver rod with me and some bread to try and catch a chub, anyone one would do, even a chublet, a bite would be nice. Storm Éowyn was making the conditions not ideal either but you cannot catch fish unless you have a bait in the water now can you.
Well it was certainly testing conditions with whitetips you could surf on but there was no stopping me in the pursuit of the angle !! The problem was it was choppy that you often had to guess where the slack were and the wind was so bad that it was difficult to register those bites from the chub.
I stuck to my mission though and despite the sun also being out in a clearing river I managed to get a bite quite early on in to the session that sadly I missed 😀. That could have been my only bite of the day but I got roving about and dropped in to a few swims before picking up the first small chub not much than a pound I would think.
The breakthrough came when I found a deeper swim where a bite came quite quick on the huge piece of garlic oil flake and after some fast pulls the tip went round confidently and I hooked in to a nice chub that was pulling back. For its size it gave a good account for itself and had a nice winter frame on it when I steered it in to the net.
This a 3lb 4oz fish from a waterway that has its challenges and was most welcome indeed. Another 3 or 4 smaller chub also wanted the bread but sadly I had to leave on one's curfew. Ok nothing big was caught but at least the bites were forthcoming on what was a rather blustery day. Around 2.5 hours of fishing, not a bad result I say. I'll be back !!!
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