Warwickshire Avon - Subconspiratorialism and Seclusionaryness

Well, with the rivers looking less like rivers and more like mobile sections of the North Atlantic that had accidentally taken a wrong turn at Gloucester, fishing had, in the most British understatement possible, been “curtailed somewhat,” which is to say that every stretch of water within sensible driving distance was either the colour of builder’s tea or attempting to annex the nearest towpath, and so when Friday arrived work concluding mercifully at midday like a benevolent headmaster ringing the last bell before summer I found myself faced with that most dangerous of propositions: opportunity. 

The sensible angler inside me, the one who owns far too many rods for a man with only two hands and a slightly unreliable left knee, suggested a speculative wander down the canal for a zander or two, because canals at least have the decency not to rise three feet in an afternoon; but the Avon, swelling faster than my blood pressure when subjected to the six o’clock news and its parade of doom, gloom and men pointing at graphs, was doing its level best to resemble a liquid freight train, and in truth I simply wasn’t feeling it. 

There are days when the piscatorial muse whispers sweet nothings about chub beneath far-bank willows, and then there are days when she shrugs, orders takeaway and tells you to put your feet up, and so it was that I, alone in the house and answerable to no one but the kettle, drew the curtains with theatrical finality, powered up the surround sound system I had installed in a fit of technological optimism back in 2008, and committed myself to cinema rather than cyprinids.

The film in question Sinners, as recommended by my twin brother, who shares both my face, my questionable judgement and well worn liver turned out to be an unexpectedly rich slice of Mississippi-set supernatural mayhem, all juke joints, gangsters and things that go bump in the Delta night, and I must confess it was rather splendid.

The sort of movie that grips you by the lapels and refuses to let go, much like an irate bailiff or a particularly committed barbel; indeed I’d go so far as to say it was one of my favourites in a good long while, and as the bass rumbled through speakers that had previously known only the Shipping Forecast and the occasional overenthusiastic weather bulletin, I felt entirely vindicated in my decision to swap waders for popcorn. 

Outside, of course, the meteorological farce continued unabated, low-pressure systems queuing over the UK as though waiting for discounted pasties, all because a stubborn slab of high pressure had parked itself over Scandinavia like a Volvo abandoned outside a fjord, blocking the usual eastward progress of weather fronts and ensuring that we, down here, received day after day of mizzle, drizzle and full-fat deluge, the rivers remaining emphatically knackered and in no mood to entertain a man with a landing net and misplaced optimism.

And yet, as every angler knows, the soul requires variety, and so it was that Liverpool beckoned, specifically the WAV Garden, where for a solid twelve hours twelve, dear reader, which is roughly the gestation period of a small mammal I found myself enthusiastically rearranging my limbs to the sounds of progressive house DJs, Sasha headlining with the sort of authority normally reserved for monarchs and particularly confident carp, the bass so insistent that one could have navigated to the venue blindfolded, guided solely by the rather large seismic wobble in one’s sternum. 

The covered ground level did its noble best to muffle proceedings for the sake of civic harmony, but even so you could feel it half a mile away, a subterranean heartbeat pulsing through the city, and when proceedings shifted downstairs (Steve Parry one of favourites was playing) into the dark and dingy tunnel club mercifully before the neighbours could marshal their complaints, I was granted a tour of the labyrinthine interior from a well known fella and DJ (Thanks Paul), a temple to rhythm that left me grinning like a newcomer to raving who’d just been transported to a rave in the 1990's. 

It is, I find, a remarkable tonic, this occasional surrender to music and motion; at 53 years of age, when society gently suggests you take up beige hobbies and begin sentences with “back in my day,” there is something gloriously defiant about dancing until the early hours, and the wellbeing boost it provides is not unlike that first savage pull on a rod tip when a fish decides your offering is irresistible proof that one is still, in fact, alive and kicking as is the tinnitus STILL !!

Fishing hovered at the back of my mind throughout, of course it did, because once afflicted we are never truly cured, but I did not miss it that weekend; the rivers would continue their impression of liquid chaos regardless of my presence, and sometimes absence sharpens the appetite better than any groundbait.

Thus it was that a midweek work-from-home day presented itself like a conspiratorial wink from the universe, and I seized the chance for a quick smash-and-grab on the Warwickshire Avon, which, though still high and carrying more debris than a teenager’s bedroom floor, had at least ceased its attempt to relocate entirely to the Midlands. 

With perhaps two viable swims and less than an hour to deploy my dubious cunning and one my slightly off the beaten secret swim, I approached the task with the efficiency of a burglar on a tight schedule, rod assembled in record time, bait introduced with minimal ceremony, every sense tuned to the possibility of a chub lurking behind some crease in the slack water, smug and silver and entirely unaware that a middle-aged man with damp boots and renewed optimism had come calling.

Whether I caught or blanked is almost beside the point, for in truth the joy lay in the opportunism, the snatched hour between spreadsheets and responsibilities, the quiet rebellion of stepping down a muddy bank while colleagues elsewhere refreshed inboxes. 

As I stood there watching the swollen river slide past with deceptive calm, I reflected that life, like angling, is rarely about perfect conditions; it is about choosing your moments, embracing the distractions be they horror films or hedonistic dance floors and returning, when the mood and the river both allow, to the water’s edge with just enough hope to make it interesting.

Anyway, dear readers, there I was hotfooting it like a ferret that’s just remembered it left the gas on towards what I optimistically refer to as the “big slack swim.” Now when I say “big,” I mean in spirit rather than in actual cubic footage of fishable water, because upon arrival I was greeted by a river so full it looked like it had eaten Christmas twice and was contemplating the cheeseboard. 

The water was barely contained within its banks, sulking and bulging like a badly packed sleeping bag, and I quickly realised I’d have to fish it in about a foot of water. A foot. I’ve seen deeper puddles in supermarket car parks.

Still, never one to be defeated by mere hydrological excess, I plopped in a few hopeful nuggets of cheesepaste little yellow parcels of optimism and stood there like a man who has just posted a letter to himself. Nothing. Not a tremor. Not a flicker. The river gave me the cold shoulder. So, with the sort of dignity only an angler can muster when retreating from a terrible decision, I once again set my feet to “brisk embarrassment” mode and hoofed it off to what I call the Secret Swim.

Now, I shall not reveal the location of the Secret Swim. Not because I fear hordes of anglers descending upon it with bivvies the size of small retail parks, but because if I told you it wouldn’t be secret anymore and I’d have to rename it something awkward like “Formerly Secret Swim (Now Ruined).” Let’s just say it doesn’t get fished much. Possibly because it requires a short scramble, a duck under a hawthorn bush, and the sort of commitment usually reserved for assembling Scandinavian furniture.

But oh, what a sight greeted me. The swim looked perfect. You know the large slack away from the main flow that whispers “chub” in hushed, fishy tones, a couple of inviting snags that say, “Go on then, if you’re brave.” The light was beginning to soften into that golden half-hour before dusk when everything looks like it’s been filtered through a nostalgic biscuit tin. 

I hurriedly set up, flicked the large bread flake this time into position, and settled in for what I assumed would be a pleasant, fishless contemplation of life.

Ten minutes later, I was staring at my landing net in mild disbelief.

Two chub. Not just any chub. Two proper, respectable, broad-shouldered river residents, both four-pounders, with the larger tipping the scales at 4lb 10oz. Four-ten! That’s not a chub, that’s a statement. 

The bigger one fought like it had something to prove charging for every snag in the postcode, rod bent properly double, my heart performing percussion in my chest like an overenthusiastic drummer at a village fete. At one point I’m fairly certain the fish looked back at me as if to say, “You’ll have to do better than that, sunshine.”

Eventually, after a brief but spirited disagreement about ownership of the river, I coaxed it into the net. A beautiful fish. Bronze flanks glowing in the evening light, fins pristine, attitude exemplary. The sort of chub that makes you forgive every blank, every tangled rig, every time you’ve accidentally trodden in something unidentifiable and moist.

Naturally, I decided to stick it out. Because when you’ve had two fish in ten minutes, common sense says, “Strike while the iron is hot.” Unfortunately, angling common sense is more of a polite suggestion than an enforceable rule. The swim, having delivered its generosity, promptly shut up shop. I sat there, rod poised, watching the sun melt into the horizon like a pat of butter on hot toast. No more bites. Not even a twitch. The river had gone back to being a picture postcard with delusions of grandeur.

Still, I couldn’t complain. It had been what I like to call a “smash and grab” session—no marathon endurance test, no midnight philosophical crisis, just a quick raid, a brace of quality fish, and home in time to recount it all with unnecessary embellishment. These are the sessions that keep you coming back. Short, sharp, and just chaotic enough to make you feel like you’ve achieved something vaguely heroic.

And the conditions? Mild as you like. Water temperature at 9.1 degrees—practically tropical by winter river standards. The ground’s been soaking up that gentle rain like a sponge in a washing-up advert, then quietly releasing it back into the river, which explains why the levels were climbing faster than my optimism after the first bite. It all felt alive. Moving. Promising.

So yes, a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Two cracking chub, a sunset worth bottling, and only minimal sprinting between swims. I really must do more of these opportunistic little raids. There’s something wonderfully mischievous about slipping down to a barely fished corner of river, whispering a bit of cheesepaste and bread into the current, and nicking a couple of its finest residents before they realise what’s happened.

Until next time, keep your hooks sharp, your secrets secret, and your feet ready for rapid deployment. The river waits for no one especially not a man standing ankle-deep in a foot of water wondering where all the fish have gone. 

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.48

Dry January is now safely in the rear-view mirror, crushed beneath the mud-terrain tyres of February, and I emerge blinking into the daylight with the faint realisation that sobriety, while technically survivable, is not something I would ever choose recreationally. 

Still, it must be said, it passed with suspicious ease. No white-knuckle cravings, no midnight bargaining with myself in the kitchen, just the quiet satisfaction of knowing that I am, above all else, a stubborn old git. Dry January for me is not wellness; it is resistance training. A ritualistic breaking of the festive feedback loop where Christmas becomes a month-long pub crawl lubricated by mince pies and poor decisions.

Naturally, the Wife did not share my monk-like resolve and required taxi services on a couple of occasions. I provided these with magnanimity, smugness, and the faint moral superiority of a man clutching a bottle of sparkling water while surrounded by slurred karaoke. Willpower, it turns out, is hereditary, and sadly she married into the wrong bloodline. LOL, as the youths say, though they say it without irony and usually while being deeply disappointing.

With the calendar flicked over and the seal broken, it was only right to reacquaint myself with the pub, where a couple of pints of 6.6% Exmoor Beast’s awaited a beer that tastes like it was brewed by someone who hates you personally. 

A proper pint and less than 3 quid in spoons. The kind that doesn’t so much refresh as challenge. This was merely a prelude, however, because Sundays in this house are less “day of rest” and more “low-level endurance event”.

By sunrise I was vertical, and from that moment until six in the evening I did not sit down once. There was fishing to do, errands to run, a pub to attend, football to half-watch, and a Sunday roast to cook for six people which in reality means twelve opinions and zero help. 

Sam’s mate Matthew was present, along with his mother, who had been visiting friends the night before and had somehow wandered into this culinary hostage situation. She looked vaguely alarmed but game, like someone who’d accidentally joined a cult but liked the biscuits.

Before all that domestic theatre, though, there was the river. The Warwickshire Avon a river which, of late, has been performing like a pub band that peaked in 1994. Still there, still capable, but mostly going through the motions. I had hopes for chub, real hopes, the kind that make you ignore recent evidence and tie rigs anyway.

The track down to the syndicate stretch was waterlogged, though I didn’t give it much thought until I was already committed. This is where the Jimny comes into its own. 

Narrow all-terrain tyres, selectable four-wheel drive, low ratio if things get biblical, and weighing approximately the same as a family-sized box of cornflakes, it simply doesn’t care. It revels in adversity. Mud? Puddles? Ruts deep enough to lose a Labrador? Excellent. It scampered through like a mountain goat with a mortgage.

At the top of the stretch I parked, mashed some bread like a medieval peasant, and walked the bank depositing freebies into every slack, crease, and fish-shaped suspicion I could find. The river was still high and coloured oddly not the reassuring brown of honest rain, but that unsettling hue that suggests paperwork and a corporate apology are imminent. 

Then came the foam. Suspicious foam. The sort of foam that doesn’t belong in nature unless something has gone very wrong. No doubt a gift from Severn Trent, who recently hiked my water bill to such a degree that I briefly considered whether the neighbour behind me had been siphoning off my supply to top up a duck pond under cover of darkness. 

We are apparently “heavy users”, which sounds less like a billing category and more like a support group. Dishwasher daily, washing machine constantly, two teenage boys who emit smells previously unknown to science —yes, fine, but £100 a month? Jesus wept. Infrastructure investment, they say. Shareholder dividends, they mean.

This stretch doesn’t see much bait, and the chub, when present, are usually a better-than-average stamp. What I didn’t expect was that after five swims without so much as a tremor, the first fish would be… well… disappointing. Not a monster. Not even pretending. A chub that looked like it had been printed on reduced-quality paper. Another followed, same size, as if they were being issued in pairs.

So, plan B. Or rather, plan Z the last-gasp, most awkward, most swear-inducing swim on the stretch. A snag-ridden horror show where fish go to test your mental resilience. I’d caught chub here before, so I switched to cheesepaste, reasoning that if nothing else, it smells like regret and ambition.

Ten minutes in, a couple of plucks on the one-ounce quiver tip. Then it went properly round, pulling left with intent, and I struck… immediately clouting the large branch to my right like a man fencing an invisible opponent. 

The fish, meanwhile, made a determined bid for the roots on the left. What followed was less “playing a fish” and more “hostage negotiation with violence”. I bullied it, unapologetically, because snag fishing is not the time for politeness.

Eventually it rolled, popped its head up, and slid into the net with all the grace of a defeated tyrant. I thought it might scrape four pounds, but it didn’t quite. Still, a proper chub. A fish with shoulders. A satisfying full stop to the session.

Then it was back to civilisation. Pub visit with the rabble. Errands. Home. Apron on. Dave Seaman on the speakers one of my all-time favourites, a man whose sets have soundtracked more questionable life choices than I care to admit. 

Seladoria parties, Seaman and Steve Parry, conversations that wandered everywhere and nowhere. Three hours and forty minutes of exactly my kind of beats, football murmuring in the background, roast aromas filling the house.

By the time I finally sat down, plate in hand, pint poured, the day felt perfectly complete. Fishing, family, food, music, mild outrage at utility companies all the essential food groups.

And that, really, is what Sundays are for.

The River Leam - Quivertipping and Quasi-philosophising

I fancied a change of scenery for this short morning session, which is angler-speak for “I was bored of the usual places and deluded myself into thinking novelty alone might improve my catch rate.” Thus, I found myself once again standing beside the River Leam, a river I’ve not fished for ages, mainly because of a change of job and the inconvenient reality that I no longer finish work, leap into the car like an escapee from a low-security prison, and arrive at the river fifteen minutes later just as the light begins to fade and the fish presumably alerted by some ancient piscine WhatsApp group decide to feed for precisely fifty-eight minutes before going on strike again. 

Back then, nothing of particular note was caught: a few chub with expressions of mild irritation, the occasional roach that looked as if it had been interrupted mid-thought, and a general sense that I was participating in something deeply traditional and profoundly pointless, which of course is the very essence of river fishing.

The plan, if it could be dignified with such a term, was to fish two of the WBAS stretches and stretch my ageing legs, which much like my tackle still function but occasionally make worrying noises. Last year I averaged 10,000 steps a day over the entire year, which isn’t bad at all for someone who spends a significant portion of life welded to a chair, staring at a computer screen and wondering if this is really what evolution had in mind. 

Roving tactics were therefore employed, partly for fish-finding purposes and partly because standing still for too long now results in joints seizing up like forgotten bait tins. A small feeder filled with liquidised bread was deployed, along with a modest piece of bread on the hook a bait that has fooled fish for centuries and continues to fool anglers into thinking it will solve everything.

The river itself was fining down nicely after having recently been in the fields, which is the riverine equivalent of saying it had been out drinking heavily but was now pulling itself together. The Leam, to its credit, drops fast, and on this occasion it was perfectly fishable a phrase that always sounds optimistic but usually just means “not actively impossible.” The slack by the bridge swim, however, was utterly devoid of interest, life, or any indication that fish had ever existed as a concept, so I roved onwards, performing the familiar angling march of quiet hope interspersed with exaggerated care not to fall in.

In the next swim, something interesting almost happened. A chub or possibly a figment of my imagination appeared to grab the bread on the drop, because the feeder refused to settle properly. I struck heroically into absolutely nothing, which is a skill I have perfected over many years, but the very next cast produced a bite in under a minute and suddenly a fish was on. 

Not the biggest fish, not a river-defining leviathan, but a chub nonetheless, and as all anglers know, scores on the doors. There is something deeply reassuring about actually catching a fish, if only to confirm that one has not completely misunderstood the basic premise of angling.

What followed was a sequence of swims that could best be described as extremely quiet indeed. The sun, however, was rather nice, and this is how rivers get away with things. You forgive them everything when the light hits the water just right and the world briefly looks like a brochure. I settled into the big, deep bay swim the very same swim where I once won a syndicate match, an event that now exists mainly as a personal legend trotted out whenever morale is low. 

After twenty minutes without so much as a twitch, I decided that destiny was clearly elsewhere and headed to the other stretch, only five minutes away, because nothing says optimism like repeatedly uprooting oneself.

That’s the thing with the River Leam: it’s a lovely river, moody and understated, but it’s a 25-minute drive for me, and I’m spoiled by the Arrow and the Alne being less than fifteen minutes away and generally more inclined to provide bites rather than philosophical reflection. Still, variety is the spice of life, or at least the mild seasoning of angling disappointment. 

On the next stretch, I managed a nice chub first cast, following a series of tentative nibbles and quivertip tremors that suggest a fish deeply conflicted about its life choices. I struck more in hope than expectation and discovered a chub was indeed on, leading to a spirited battle in which it attempted to bury itself under my feet amongst some dead reeds, presumably in an effort to end the whole affair quickly. Eventually, it was persuaded otherwise, and that, sadly, was my lot.

I fished several more swims, introduced cheesepaste at one point the olfactory equivalent of shouting into the river but the remaining fish were resolutely uninterested. 

Eventually, I packed up, legs stretched, soul mildly soothed, and expectations once again recalibrated to a sensible level. The Leam hadn’t produced miracles, but it had delivered sunshine, movement, and the comforting reminder that fishing isn’t always about catching although it does help. And besides, there’s always tomorrow… or at least somewhere closer.

The River Arrow - Thermoregulation and Theatrics

Sam the Lucky One was on a teacher training day, which in real-world terms means he was “off” while I was “working,” though my version of working on a Friday involves finishing at midday-ish and making solemn promises to myself that I’ll “crack on in the afternoon maybe next week,” promises which have the structural integrity of a Rich Tea biscuit dunked twice. 

Fate, clearly an angler, had decided that this was not a day for CAD bashing but for piscatorial enlightenment, and so Sam and I found ourselves aligned like planets, or at least like two blokes with a rucksack full of bait and wildly unrealistic expectations.

Totally unlike Sam, he was keen to go fishing. This alone should have been logged with the Met Office or at least written down for future disbelief. Sam, you see, does not do cold. He doesn’t tolerate it. He doesn’t negotiate with it. 

Sam 9 years ago when he was 5 we left shortly after 😂!! 

He simply shuts down, like a mobile phone at 2% battery, and wanders off to find central heating, soup, or the overly large bosom of his mother. 

Yet here he was, voluntarily suggesting fishing in winter, which is normally about as appealing to him as licking a frozen gatepost. 

I, on the other hand, am quite lucky. I don’t feel the cold that often, possibly because I am generously insulated, possibly because I am too stupid to notice discomfort, or possibly because my internal thermostat is set permanently to “boil.” Sam, however, has inherited his mother’s genes, and she feels the cold ALL the time. 

This is despite the central heating being cranked up to a level normally reserved for incubating fertile eggs or encouraging tropical amphibians to breed. One can stand in her living room and watch the curtains wilt, and boy I have the bill to show for it.  

This raises important scientific questions. Is it the hypothalamus, the body’s thermostat? Or is it simply subcutaneous fat? Do they both have less of it than me? Sam certainly does. 

He has less meat on him than a butcher’s pencil, which means when the wind blows it goes straight through him like a badly sealed bivvy. 

His mother definitely not though I’ll add here, purely for my own safety, that she doesn’t read my blog. Who knows. Science is a mysterious thing, best left to men in white coats who don’t fish the Warwickshire Avon.

During the colder months, despite my repeated encouragement, pleading, bribery, and occasional emotional blackmail, Sam usually loses interest big time. 

He knows he won’t enjoy it. He knows his fingers will go numb, his feet will turn into ornamental ice blocks, and his enthusiasm will leak away faster than maggots through a split bait box. And yet here’s the thing he’s been noticing I’ve been winkling out a few chub on the Arrow of late.

Every time I get home he asks, casually, as if he doesn’t care, “How’d you do?” This is the fishing equivalent of someone saying they’re “not hungry” while staring intensely at your chips. 

The Arrow has been kind, and the chub have been cooperative enough to fuel dreams. And dreams, as we all know, are far warmer than reality.

So yes. To the Arrow forthwith. The mission: get Sam a chub of his own. Get him a proper bend in the rod the sort he loves, the sort that briefly makes you forget that your nose is numb and your fingers feel like borrowed items from someone else’s hands. I’d recharged the hand warmers just in case, ready to offer some temporary relief. It’s always his extremities that suffer the most, as if the cold targets him personally, like a sniper.

The air temperature definitely felt colder than where the mercury settled at 8 degrees, it was a chilly wind. That’s winter for you: the thermometer says one thing, your face says another. Even I, on my lunchtime fast walk, had increased the pace to try and warm the cockles. This is never a good sign. When you, a man built for thermal efficiency, start walking like you’re late for a train, you know it’s Baltic.

So anyway, enough analysis, enough physiology, enough excuses. We’d better get fishing, hadn’t we!!!

The Arrow greeted us with that familiar winter indifference, sliding past quietly, pretending it hadn’t seen us. The sort of river that makes you whisper, not because you’ll spook the fish, but because it feels like a church where chub are the congregation and you’re very late. Sam, blew on his hands, and looked at me with the expression of a man who has made a terrible but educational mistake.

It didn’t take long to catch the first chub, which was mildly annoying because I’d barely settled into my role as Supreme Commander of Excuses. A couple of missed pull rounds in the opening swim didn’t help matters, nor did the swim feeder, which shot past the chub’s noses like a low-flying missile and almost certainly sent them off for counselling. 

Still, optimism lingered like the smell of damp canvas and crushed hemp, so we did what all sensible anglers do when things go slightly wrong: we legged it up the river pretending it was all part of a cunning master plan.

Roving upstream, we fished every swim that looked remotely chubby—under overhanging branches, near slack water, beside mysterious bubbles that were definitely fish and not, as history suggests, something decomposing. 

It didn’t take long to find them. The first fish nudged the scales at a pound, which is the angling equivalent of a polite handshake. But as we pushed further up the Arrow and onto the Alne, the fish improved, as did Sam’s smugness, which grew with each bend of the rod and each theatrical sigh. At this point, Sam more or less annexed the rod. He manned it. He captained it. I was demoted to net boy, commentator, and occasional provider of tea. 

Five chub came to hand, all his, bar one for me, plus one that came off mid-battle after giving him a proper runaround, darting about like it had an urgent appointment elsewhere. I offered words of wisdom throughout, mostly beginning with “What you should have done is…”, which were ignored with commendable discipline.

They weren’t monsters, these chub, but they were proper river fish, and the afternoon slipped by in that agreeable way that only happens when the light softens, the bites keep coming, and your fishing buddy is having a genuinely cracking time.

Sam certainly was, which was good though I couldn’t help noticing that his best mate and angler Matthew is arriving Saturday lunchtime and they’re off magnet fishing on the local canals. Staying over, too. Apparently, I’m now second best to rusty shopping trolleys and Victorian padlocks.

Still, all things considered, it was a fine afternoon. Good company, obliging fish, and the comforting knowledge that while I may have lost the rod, the glory, and possibly my standing in the friendship hierarchy, I retained the most important thing of all: the blog post. And as every angler knows, that’s where the real trophies live, shame those other bloggers that have fallen off the radar don't think the same way 🎣

The River Arrow - Detectorism and DiscursiveMeanderingness

I woke with that familiar, half-formed optimism that only an angler can truly appreciate: the belief that today might be the day, despite all evidence to the contrary gathered over decades of personal experience. A bite was required. Not desired, not hoped for required, like tea, oxygen, or a mild complaint about the weather.

The first act of the morning ritual was enacted with the solemnity of a pagan ceremony: checking the local river levels. The Arrow, that most contrary of rivers, looked fishable. Not ideal, mind. Still a little higher than I’d like, a little browner than I’d planned for in my imagination, but close enough to justify lying to myself.

Anyway, it’s only fifteen minutes by car to the stretch I’ve been fishing recently. Fifteen minutes is nothing in angling terms. You can waste fifteen minutes just tying a hooklength you’ll immediately cut off again because it “doesn’t feel right”. So off I went, threading my way along country lanes clearly designed in medieval times to accommodate one horse, a sack of turnips, and the occasional chicken with a death wish. And then, just as I hit the main road into town, there it was: the Line. A vast, unbroken conga of parked cars stretching into the distance like a metallic spawning run.

Now I don’t mind company, but my angling brain instantly did what it always does: Match fishing. I could see them in my mind’s eye already keepnets like submarine pens, stopwatches, men shouting numbers at one another with the intensity of air-traffic controllers. My fishing time, I feared, was about to be curtailed to something resembling a polite paddle.

I parked before the combination-locked gate, checked the club book (as one does, because rules are important and because it allows us to feel morally superior), and… nothing. No match. No warning. No ominous footnote saying “Abandon all hope ye who seek solitude.” Perhaps it was on Facebook. But I don’t use Facebook. I have enough ways of being confused and irritated without adding that particular circus to the repertoire.

Oh well. Get fishing anyway.

I headed straight to the banker swim under the bridge – a spot that has rescued many a blank and restored many a wounded ego. Five minutes in, I missed a couple of bites. Proper bites too. The sort that make your heart do that ridiculous little leap before immediately kicking you in the shins. Third time lucky though, and a fish was on. 

The water was a milky brown, perhaps six inches of visibility at best, but I was fishing visible white bread – a bait so bright it practically files a flight plan. The fish turned out to be a chub of about two pounds. Nothing to write to the record books about, but as every angler knows: a fish is a fish is a fish, and each one counts double if you’ve already begun mentally drafting a blog post about blanking.

As I landed it, an elderly gentleman appeared on the bridge, peering down like a benevolent gargoyle. Conversation followed, as it always does near bridges.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”

“Just to warn you,” he said, in the tone of a man announcing incoming weather or invading armies, “you’re about to be joined by a load of people.”

Ah. So it was a match then.

“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “Dirt fishermen. Metal detectorists. About sixty of us.”

Sixty.

Now I’m not one to judge. Fishing, after all, is basically just staring at water while holding a stick. Metal detecting is staring at fields while listening to beeps. Cousins, really. Still, the mental image of sixty headphone-wearing relic hunters descending upon my previously empty stretch of river was… unexpected.

He assured me they wouldn’t bother me, and to be fair they didn’t. Soon the banks were populated by an extraordinary parade of attire: full tactical commando outfits, as if expecting enemy fire from the reeds; carp-lifer chic (beanies, muted colours, expressions of permanent mild suffering); and then the outliers blazing red jackets visible from space, presumably to aid satellite navigation or alien contact. Mostly elderly men, but also kids and women, all united by the hopeful beep of buried history and the unshakeable belief that this next signal might be the big one.

I was full expecting to see Jeff Hatt from https://digregardless.blogspot.com/ but he didn't' appear. 

I roved on. The river was still high, but the slacks were doing their thing. A shallow back eddy produced a savage bite, followed by the inevitable snag-finding manoeuvre performed by all self-respecting chub. The next cast, however, resulted in redemption. Another fish on. And another later. And another. By the time the session wound down I’d landed six chub, the best nudging three pounds  not monsters, but honest fish, caught in honest conditions, while surrounded by a mobile museum of people earnestly failing to find anything.

Did they find treasure? From the snippets of conversation I overheard: no. Certainly not another Brownhills Hoard, that legendary £3 million stash discovered by Terry Herbert in a field belonging to Fred Johnson the sort of story that keeps detectorists detecting and anglers angling, both convinced that today might be the day everything changes.

As I packed up, the detectorists drifted away, pockets no heavier, spirits undimmed. I reflected that the river, the fish, and the strange pageant of humanity had combined into one of those sessions you couldn’t plan if you tried. Slightly surreal. Mildly ridiculous. Entirely memorable.

And that, really, is fishing.

Warwickshire Stour - Osmiferousbreaminality AND Turbiditationalism

There are times on the Warwickshire Stour when you feel less like an angler and more like an unpaid extra in a low-budget natural history documentary entitled Men Who Persist Despite All Available Evidence. This winter has been one of those times. 

The Warks Stour Power WhatsApp group normally a place of mild exaggeration, heroic selfies, and suspiciously well-timed PBs has recently taken on the tone of a grief counselling session chaired by a damp keepnet. Three men. One river. And a collective inability to get anything resembling consistency out of it.

The trio in question are, of course, myself (the roaming optimist), Nic of Avon Angling fame (who knows this river better than the fish themselves), and George “I Don’t Blog Any More” Burton, who despite the name has begun the New Year obsessed with the idea of a big Stour roach an obsession that places him somewhere between dedicated specimen hunter and man waiting for a bus that may never come.

Now the Stour has been patchy. Not “a bit hit and miss” patchy, but Jekyll and Hyde with a landing net patchy. Hit it right and you’re into chub as if they’ve formed a queue. Miss it by a matter of hours and you could spend the entire session communing with gudgeon that nibble like Victorian pickpockets. Only a short while ago I had seven chub in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it session, each one convincing me I’d cracked the code. The very next day? Naff all most likely. Not even a courtesy knock.

Nic, being a man of science (or at least a man who sounds scientific when holding a glass of water), reckons it’s all down to water colour. And I suspect he’s onto something. He’d fished it when the river was still charging through, but the colour oh the colour was that unmistakable Stour green. Not a pleasant mossy green. Not a healthy aquatic green. More like the colour the Hulk might produce after a heavy night involving lime slush puppies and a Midori Sour chaser. Visibility somewhere between “murky” and “why bother wearing polarised glasses at all.”

When the Stour’s in proper flood, chocolate brown and angry, it can actually fish well. Those canals in spitting distance turbidity, the fish lose their paranoia, and those old, streetwise roach the ones with PhDs in hook avoidance suddenly fancy a wander. They know the drill. Brown water means fewer fins brushing their flanks and fewer beady-eyed anglers staring into their souls. Confidence, it turns out, is a murky thing.

So off I went, roving like a man with optimism but no plan, alternating between half a lobworm and bread, with liquidised bread laced with geranium essential oil squeezed lovingly into the feeder. Yes, geranium. Don’t ask. I read it somewhere once, probably at midnight, probably written by a man who owns more tweed than sense.

The conditions were, frankly, abysmal. A cold wind gusting like it had a personal vendetta against my quivertip. Bites were less “tap tap” and more “was that the wind or my imagination?” Not exactly textbook stuff, but then needs must when the river calls and the canals are still sulking in the background.

And then because fishing is nothing if not a cruel performance artist within ten minutes I had rattly bites on the one-ounce tip in the very swim that produced my PB river roach. I struck. 

The rod hooped. And for approximately three seconds I was connected to destiny. Roach? Chublet? I’ll never know. It felt right. It felt silvery. And then it was gone, leaving only a slack line and that hollow feeling anglers carry far longer than any fish.

After that, swim after swim delivered nothing but nibbles. Tiny fish with ambition vastly exceeding mouth capacity. Strikes that connected with nothing but hope. 

 At one point I deployed the “get out of jail card” those woody swims that usually cough up at least something but even they merely offered more pecking and more disappointment. Even the chub didn't show after switching to an all out bread feeder attack. 

Four hours later I was staring down the barrel of a blank. A proper one. The sort that seeps into your bones and makes you question past life choices. Meanwhile, downstream, George was into bream. And not just bream good’uns. Slabs. 

The sort of fish that arrive uninvited and leave your landing net smelling like a trawler’s sock drawer. It just goes to show what can turn up in this river as it winds through open farmland, quietly ignoring our theories and plans. 

On the plus side, my landing net remained blissfully free of bream slime, my garage was spared, and domestic harmony was preserved. Small victories matter.

Still, I’m fed up with floodwater now. Properly fed up. The romance has worn thin. The Stour will do what it wants, when it wants, and explain nothing. I’m not quite ready to retreat to the canals just yet but the thought is there, hovering, like a backup plan written in pencil.

Until then, we’ll keep going. Because sometimes the blank is part of the story. And sometimes, just sometimes, the river gives you three seconds of magic enough to keep you coming back for the next chapter

Warwickshire Avon - Reverberations and Ruminations

There are moments, usually around three in the morning when the tinnitus starts doing its own ambient remix, that I find myself wondering whether life might have panned out differently had I known, back in the early nineties, that the barbel stocks in Warwickshire resembled something closer to the biblical plague proportions of the mighty Trent. 

Had this knowledge been imparted to me perhaps by a benevolent angling oracle wearing a bucket hat I might have stepped down from those speaker arrays, stopped using my inner ear as a bass port, and invested instead in a decent pair of waders and some tins of spam.

Of course, this would have required foresight, and foresight was in tragically short supply when one was twenty-something, chemically optimistic, and convinced that the meaning of life could be found somewhere between a strobe light and a white label pressing from Detroit.

 Standing on speakers was not just encouraged, it was practically a civic duty. 

If the bass didn’t rearrange your internal organs, you weren’t really listening. The fact that I now hear a constant high-pitched whine is simply my brain nostalgically replaying the encore.

Then came the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, a piece of legislation so poetically absurd that it managed to define music by its repetitiveness. 

A “succession of repetitive beats,” they said, as though that wasn’t also an accurate description of both angling conversation and the average heart rate of a tench. 

The police were handed the power to shut down joy itself, prompting electronic musicians to respond in the only reasonable way: by writing deliberately non-repetitive music purely out of spite. Somewhere in this period, I realised that nothing bonds people quite like being told they’re not allowed to enjoy themselves rhythmically.

Fast-forward three decades and here I am, fifty-three years old, with three gigs booked and a spine that sounds like gravel being stirred with a bank stick. Sasha and my DJ mate Steve Parry in his hometown Liverpool. Deep Dish at the legendary Sub Club in Glasgow. And, looming gloriously on the horizon, 808 State in Brum, those heroic knob-twizzlers who proved that a Roland TB-303 could sound like an alien frog trapped in a biscuit tin. I and the ageing likeminded will attend all of them with the unshakeable belief that age is merely a suggestion.

My wife, bless her, continues to find it baffling that the same man who seeks enlightenment and solitude beside a river at dawn can willingly stand in a dark room being physically assaulted by subwoofers. She sees contradiction. I see balance. One moment you’re feeling the subtle pluck of a barbel three feet under the surface; the next you’re feeling bass frequencies rearranging your kidneys. Both, in their own way, are deeply spiritual experiences though only one of them requires glow sticks.

And so I continue, oscillating happily between riverbank and rave floor, ignoring the ache in my knees and the faint whistling in my ears. Because once a raver, always a raver. It gets into the system, much like that groundbait smell in a fleece you’ve washed seven times and still can’t wear to Tesco. You don’t fight it. You accept it. You crack on. And if, one day, I’m found peacefully expired in a bivvy while a phantom 4/4 beat plays in my head, I’ll consider that a life very well lived.

With tackle already in the car there are few phrases sweeter to the angler’s ear than “midday finish.” It has the same magical properties as “free pint,” “go on then,” and “that’ll do nicely.” Forty-three hours neatly ticked off in the design studio, brain switched to standby mode, and before the boss could even finish saying “see you Monday,” The smaller rivers and streams were, sadly, still behaving like they’d just watched an action film and fancied a go themselves bank-high, angry, and intent on carrying away anything foolish enough to stand near them. 

So Plan A, B and most of C were abandoned. Enter the Warwickshire Avon: still full of herself, mind, but calming down just enough to look fishable rather than murderous. A rare and beautiful compromise. Roving tactics were the order of the day. No seat box, no bivvy, no unnecessary items such as comfort or dignity. Just a loaf of bread, a lump of cheesepaste with the aroma of a French dairy gone rogue, and the quiet optimism that only an angler can muster after a working week.

The river had that look about it, the sort of look that suggests common sense should prevail and the flask lid should remain firmly screwed shut. It was up and banging through, shoulders hunched against its own momentum, dragging winter detritus along as if in a foul mood and in no hurry to apologise for it. I’d expected the stretch to be mine, entirely and indulgently so, but there was already evidence that another soul had questioned their own judgement as severely as I was questioning mine. Who, after all, is stupid enough to fish in these conditions? Apparently, at least two of us. Thankfully the other was a wildfowler on reccy. 

Still, I know this piece of water rather well. Intimately, in fact. Like an ex-girlfriend whose habits you never quite forget, even when you wish you could. For all the river’s bluster and chest-beating there are little places where it softens, pauses, takes a breath. Slacks that sit there quietly, pretending they aren’t exactly where a chub would want to be when everything else is in a bad temper. That knowledge alone was enough to keep me honest as I set up, despite the wind that had teeth and the sort of rain that never really commits but somehow always leaves you damp and faintly miserable.

I settled into what I consider the best slack on the stretch, the sort of swim you’d happily defend in court. Cheesepaste went on the hook, cheesy garlic bread crammed dutifully into the feeder, and I convinced myself that patience was going to be rewarded. Half an hour passed. Nothing. Not a tremor, not a suggestion, not even the courtesy of a false alarm. The tip might as well have been painted on. Eventually realism won out over optimism, and it was time to shoulder the gear and start roving.

Swim after swim told the same story. I lingered longer than usual, partly out of stubbornness and partly because conditions like these don’t lend themselves to quick fixes. If a chub was at home, it was going to take its time answering the door. But the tip remained obstinately lifeless, and with each move the wind seemed to find a new angle from which to make its presence felt. You begin to question your bait, your rig, your sanity, and eventually your entire angling philosophy.

Down towards the end of the stretch there’s a likely little slack, close in, easy to overlook when the river’s quieter but worth a dabble when it’s throwing its weight around. By now the sun was slipping away, low and unhelpful, shining directly into my eyes with all the sympathy of a pub landlord at closing time. Ten minutes in, just as I was considering another move, the tip gave two sharp, unmistakable pulls. Instinct took over. I struck, lifted into a solid fish, and for a brief, ridiculous moment allowed myself to believe.

Reality, as it often does, arrived promptly. I knew almost immediately it wasn’t the fish I wanted. A chub, yes, but a little rascal rather than the bar-of-soap six-pounder I’d been daydreaming about. Still, a fish is a fish is a fish, and the blank was avoided. There’s always comfort in that, even if it’s a slightly hollow one.

With time running out, optimism made one last appearance and suggested a return to the best slack. It had, after all, been primed for a good hour and looked as good as it ever would. Sadly, if there was a decent chub in residence, it was clearly on holiday. A final move to a hard, snag-ridden swim followed the sort you fish knowing full well it might end badly, but unable to resist the “what if”.

Fifteen minutes later, without so much as a bite, I lifted the rod and felt that horrible, unmistakable dead weight. The feeder and the entire rig were well and truly stuck, embraced by a snag with no intention of letting go. A few cautious tugs became firmer ones, and eventually there was nothing for it but to pull for a break. Lost the lot. Bugger.

So that was that. Cold, damp, slightly irritated, but not blanked. No gold at the end of the rainbow this time, just the quiet satisfaction of having read the water as best I could and had it answer back, if only briefly. And somehow, despite everything, already thinking about when I might next go back and have another go.

Anyway if you want a fishing podcast to listen too and don't fancy fishing in these crap conditons give fellow blogger Gale Light the Essex Scribbler podcasts a listen !!. Better not tell The Chubmeister General on this one, that I've been using pastry in my cheespaste he won't be happy !!.