Warwickshire Avon - Selfies and Selenography

The Warwickshire Avon, that meandering mistress of hope and heartbreak, greeted me with her usual murky indifference. I arrived armed not with optimism (that died years ago somewhere near Bidford), but with a small rechargeable light, a questionable rig, and enough bait to sink a modest canoe.

You see, someone had asked me recently how I manage those moody, torch-lit trophy shots without invoking the demonic flash of a phone camera from 2006. The answer is delightfully unsophisticated: a £12 dimmable light, bought in haste from the darker corners of eBay, wedged awkwardly in the bank with a bendy bankstick and sheer will. It’s always in my bag, next to the emergency pork pies and philosophical despair.

This session was supposed to be a quick smash-and-grab—no midnight vigils (there are rules after all !!), no existential crises by the water's edge, just in, out, barbel about. Same peg as the near-double the other evening; a fish so fine I almost forgot to photograph it with my headlamp set to “interrogation mode.”

Today’s twist? The “Gluttonous Chub Poka-Yoke Rig”™. A concept borne not of science or field-tested data, but rather the caffeine-fuelled madness that strikes when you've blanked three times in a row and start imagining a rig that can outwit chub by being too delicious to resist yet oddly selective. The idea was simple: one enormous bait roughly the size of a golf ball, if that ball had spent time in a curry house and some freebies slung out for good measure.

I had just begun my careful setup when two of the Avon’s regulars plodded down the track. Lovely fellas, both more interested in chinwags than chub. Thursday is their social. Rods out, thermos open, bite alarms off. Fishing is incidental a performance piece more than a pursuit.

We exchanged pleasantries, a few jokes about barbel becoming an endangered species, and parted ways before they could notice that I was fishing with a bait large enough to choke a badger. First cast, textbook. PVA bag deployed, pellet sunk with promise. 

Gin-clear water glistened under the waning sun. Half an hour passed. Then it happened. A bite. A twitch. The sort of nod you’d expect from someone at a funeral buffet who’s just clocked the sausage rolls. Strike! Contact. Result? A chub so small it looked like it had been grown in a test tube. It swung in with all the grace of a wet sock. So much for the rig being chub-proof. More like chub-encouraging.

Still, the witching hour approached, and with it that deliciously pointless hope that something big and bewhiskered might make an appearance. I waited. The Avon gurgled. A bat flew into my rod, 5 times. I forgave it. 

The curfew loomed thirty minutes past official dusk. Enough time for a miracle, or at the very least, a half-hearted twitch. But alas, the rod tips remained static. 

Even the otters didn’t bother showing up. I reeled in with all the enthusiasm of someone checking a lottery ticket with two numbers and a bonus ball.

Blank? Technically yes. Spiritually? Also yes. But such is the way of the river.

I packed up, torch unused, head full of excuses, and trudged back to the car. You can’t win them all, but at least you can fail under moody lighting with style.