Warwickshire Stour - Undercarriages and Undulationisms

 A rather dramatic sunrise greeted me when I arrived at the rather lovely Warwickshire Stour. I'm fond of this one particular stretch mainly because you are unlikely to bump in to another angler in pursuit of the angle. 

Sheepshit and Solitude....😎

The problem with the Stour is that you have often have the session played out, where you are going to fish, what you are going to catch but often like like this session those prerequisites go out the window. 

So tackle for this short (aren't they all) my TFG river and stream rod, liquidised bread flavoured with Sensas Gros Gardons aromix liquid attractant in the feeder and bread on the hook was the plan, and chub the intended quarry. I do scale down to fish this little river though where I swap to a size 12 feeder special hook and a lighter hooklink.

There are some nice roach down here you see (my best 1lb 9oz) but they are less likely to show up than the electorate in a general election. The chub don't go massive to if you do lose one it might be a 4 lber not a cry in the handkerchief 6lber from the Avon.  

Being inland we were rather sheltered from the recent Storm Éowyn but its wrath could be seen in a few of the swims. I did wonder why some of the downstream pegs were a bit more turbulent from normal and this could well have been the cause of it. Its undercarriage on full show so I didn't take a picture to spare someone's blushes, oh wait !!!, oh well, I doubt it reads my blog anyway. 

The Stour wasn't its usual emerald green colour, the recent rain had turned it to more of a weak tea colour and could well have been why I was struggling for bites.

Hmmmm....

This wasn't going well until the fourth swim where a few quick missed bites played out on the 3/4 ounce quiver tip, I decided to switch to maggots instead. Now I rarely bring maggots but last night I packed a few for a vacation, well that or a drowning !! so maybe the fish Gods were looking down on me.

You see a minute or so after the feeder hit the bottom some twerky bites I struck in to a fish. At first I thought it was a chublet as it was trying to get in to some cover to my right however I got a glimpse of it when it came to the surface after steering it away from the inevitable. 

It was a rather nice roach 💞...

....and who doesn't love a nice roach !!!

Happy days !!! 

I really didn't expect that so I carried on the maggots as hook bait and liquidised bread in the feeder where over the next hour I picked up another 2 roach ranging from around 12 ounces with the biggest an ounce over the pound mark.

Oh nothing to write home about but we are fishing a dirty river that winds itself through open farmland. this isn't a chalk stream in Hampshire. They made me happy anyway 💗, especially when they were in cracking condition. 

The wind was starting to pick up with another storm on the way and to be honest not only was it that chilly wind that gets you right to the bone, but the bites had dried up and difficult to see even if I had one. 

I dropped in to the first swim again which I'd pre-baited which is usually good for a chub, but no the chub were having an off day, they didn't show at all. I really do love small river fishing, what's not to like (well apart from the size of the fish 😃, give them a go, you might be 'hooked' like I am.