This, however, is Nic's manor, so to speak, and there aren't many people who know this particular stretch of river as intimately as he does. He knows the swims, the depth changes, the snags, the banks, the bits you can walk down without falling into the river and, most importantly, the bits where a barbel might actually be persuaded to put its head above the parapet.
After a considerable amount of badgering, nagging, whining and what I would describe as perfectly reasonable persistence, Nic eventually succumbed to my moaning. We pencilled in a short evening session, nothing elaborate, just a few hours into dusk to see if we could winkle out a barbel.
I should point out that "short session" is now becoming something of a speciality of mine. Gone are the days when I could happily sit beside a river for fourteen hours contemplating the meaning of life while waiting for a quivertip to move three millimetres, because these days after about four hours my body starts filing formal complaints. There is something wonderfully appealing about a quick smash-and-grab session. Arrive, fish, hopefully catch something, pack up and go home before your knees start making noises normally associated with a Victorian staircase.
The Warwickshire Avon has had a bit of a bad wrap over the years, particularly where barbel are concerned. According to certain sections of social media, if a river isn't producing a seventeen-pound barbel every time somebody puts a lump of meat on a hook, it is apparently finished, deceased, buried and already being mourned by people who haven't actually fished it for five years. Social media has rather changed the way some people view fishing. If there isn't a photograph, a ridiculous hashtag, three hundred likes and somebody standing behind the fish looking as though they have just discovered the Ark of the Covenant, then apparently the fish didn't really count.
And if you are after barbel purely for the notoriety of catching them, then I suppose the Severn, Trent and Wye offer more obvious opportunities. There are considerably more whiskers swimming about in those rivers and, consequently, considerably more opportunities to produce the obligatory photograph of yourself holding one while staring into the middle distance as though you have just negotiated a particularly difficult hostage situation.
Of course, the Warwickshire Avon has had its problems, and some of them are very real indeed. Our furry friend the otter certainly hasn't helped matters over the years, although I suspect blaming everything on an otter is rather like blaming the state of British roads on one particularly badly driven Ford Fiesta.
Then there was the quite staggering fish kill in June 2024. The incident was attributed to an oxygen crash, with material washed into the river during storms also believed to have contributed to the problem, and the scale of it was genuinely upsetting. It wasn't ancient history either. This was a relatively recent and significant event, and when you see the consequences of something like that, you can't help wondering what the future holds for the river and the fish that call it home.
Yet despite all of that, more and more barbel seem to be showing at the moment, which is enormously encouraging news for those of us who live locally. There is something particularly satisfying about catching a good fish from a river that is practically on your doorstep rather than spending two hours driving across the country before you've even picked up a rod.
Don't get me wrong, I love travelling to fish, but there comes a point when you question whether the seventeen-pound barbel is actually worth the diesel, motorway coffee, toll roads, parking charges and the gradual deterioration of your spine.
If instant results and trophy shots for Instagram are your primary objectives, then perhaps the Avon isn't necessarily the river for you.
Unless, of course, your name is James Forty Rivers Denison, in which case you probably turn up at a puddle behind a garden centre and somehow catch a barbel that requires a wheelbarrow.
His 40 river challenge will be ticked off by this time next year if he keeps his recent momentum up, keep at it James !! I look forward to the book !!
For the rest of us mere mortals, the Avon offers something slightly different. You have to put the time in, accept that some sessions will produce absolutely nothing and understand that the river isn't particularly interested in your social media engagement statistics.
And that is precisely why I like it.
There is something very appealing about fishing a river where you aren't guaranteed anything. You can walk miles, fish perfectly, put the right bait in exactly the right place and still go home with nothing more than a slightly damp sandwich and the suspicion that the fish were laughing at you from underneath a tree root. This season I have actually been doing reasonably well, I must admit. I've had some nice barbel from the Avon, with my best so far an ounce or so over twelve pounds, which isn't a bad fish at all and certainly gives the scales something worthwhile to do.
Naturally, however, once you catch a twelve-pounder you immediately stop being grateful for catching a twelve-pounder and start wondering where the fourteen-pounder is. This is one of the many wonderful psychological defects associated with fishing. You could catch the fish of a lifetime and by the time you've driven home you are already wondering whether it had a brother.
The Avon has bigger fish, without doubt, and that is what keeps me interested. Somewhere underneath those roots, behind those snags or tucked beneath an undercut bank is a barbel that could potentially make the twelve-pounder look like a junior member of the family.
I just need to persuade it to eat something with a hook in it.
The problem, if you can call it that, is that the Avon is often gin clear. During daylight the fish can see everything, and I mean everything. They probably know what brand of hooklength you are using before you've even finished tying the knot.
You can stand on the bank and stare into the water and see weed, stones, branches, gravel, fish and, if you're unlucky, your own reflection looking increasingly desperate.
But as the light fades, everything changes.
Those fish that have spent the afternoon hiding in snags, tucked beneath overhanging branches or sheltering underneath undercut banks begin to venture out. The river takes on that wonderful evening feel where the light disappears, the birds quieten down and suddenly you start thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, tonight could be the night.
Of course, every angler knows this feeling.
It is the same feeling that has emptied thousands of bank accounts and caused millions of unnecessary purchases from tackle shops.
You sit there thinking, "This is it."
Then three hours later you are packing up thinking, "Why did I think this was it?"
Still, that is fishing.
Nic and I planned to meet up, walk the bank for a nose around and have a look at what was happening before settling into a swim. There is something to be said for walking the river before fishing it, particularly on the Avon, because things change and what looked perfect six months ago can now look like somewhere you'd store a stolen bicycle.
The walk also gives you an opportunity to peer into likely areas, look for signs of fish and, most importantly, pretend that you are doing something productive rather than simply wandering around with a fishing rod.
Nic, naturally, was much more knowledgeable than me. He'd point at a bit of slack water and say something along the lines of, "There'll be one under there."
I'd look at it and think, "It looks like water."
This is the difference between somebody who knows a river intimately and somebody who has spent most of his life asking, "Do you reckon there are any fish in there?"
Eventually we settled on a couple of swims which both of us had not fished before and started getting ourselves organised. There was nothing particularly complicated about the plan. A sensible bait, sensible tackle, a sensible amount of optimism and a complete absence of anything remotely sensible about our expectations.
The objective was simply to put a bait where a barbel might find it once darkness arrived. That sounds easy enough, but of course anglers have an extraordinary ability to turn the simplest possible activity into something resembling a military operation.
Rods come out, alarms are attached, leads are selected, hooks are checked, bags are opened and closed repeatedly and at some point somebody inevitably says, "Where's my scissors?"
Nobody knows. They are always somewhere. Usually in the hand of the person asking where they are.
As daylight began to disappear, the Avon started to change character. The crystal-clear water that had looked almost sterile earlier in the evening suddenly became dark and mysterious, and the snags along the margins began to look less like bits of wood and more like very effective fish-holding machinery.
This is when I really like the Avon. There is no guarantee of a bite, but there is always that possibility. The whole river seems to come alive just when you can no longer see what's going on. And that, of course, is when your imagination gets involved.
Every little pluck becomes a barbel. Every knock becomes a barbel. A leaf hitting the line becomes a barbel. A distant owl becomes, somehow, a barbel. You sit there staring at the rod tip convinced that it has moved when, in reality, it hasn't moved at all. It is simply your eyesight slowly giving up. Now, we'd chosen an area with cover and lots of it, decent pace despite the low conditions and some streamer weed in and around the swim. A nice dink on the bottom too, so at least we knew we both had the baits presented correctly.
The beauty of fishing into dusk is that you don't actually need much to happen before the excitement levels rise. A slight movement, a single liner or a tiny change in the position of the rod tip is enough to have you sitting upright like somebody has just shouted "free beer". Nic, being far more experienced on this stretch, was naturally far more relaxed. I was considerably less relaxed. This is partly because I wanted a barbel and partly because I had already mentally written the blog. This is another problem with fishing.
You don't just have to catch the fish; you have to remember what happened, where it happened, what bait you used, what the weather was doing, what Nic said, what you said and whether the fish looked sufficiently impressive when photographed. The fish, meanwhile, is simply trying to eat dinner without becoming a blog post. As the darkness properly arrived, the river became almost completely invisible.
The noise of the water increased, the banks disappeared into shadow and the whole place became wonderfully atmospheric. Somewhere out there were barbel. We just had to convince one of them that our bait was a better proposition than whatever else was naturally available.
That is the wonderful thing about the Avon. You aren't surrounded by bivvies (unless you're on the other bank), tripods, twenty rods and enough tackle to outfit a small expedition.
It can be wonderfully simple. Two anglers, two rods, a river and the faint possibility of a barbel. No drama. No pressure. No expectation.
Well, apart from the expectation that I was going to catch one. Which, when you think about it, is quite a lot of expectation. Still, that was the plan and we settled down to see what happened. The Avon was doing what the Avon does best: flowing quietly through the lowlight while keeping its secrets firmly to itself.
And somewhere beneath the black surface, possibly under a snag, possibly beneath an undercut bank, was a barbel that had absolutely no idea that two idiots were sitting on the bank waiting for it. Hopefully, before the evening was over, we'd introduce ourselves.
Jesus Mick, stop with the waffle !!!The sunset was particularly vibrant, which was rather inconvenient given that our club has recently reminded us that there is to be no night fishing, a rule which, to be fair, has always existed but has presumably been rediscovered after a few members decided that “until dusk” was actually shorthand for “until the milkman starts his morning round”.
According to the astronomical boffins, properly fully dark means the Sun has disappeared more than 18 degrees below the horizon, thereby bringing astronomical twilight to an end, which on this particular evening would have been somewhere between 8.45pm and 9.15pm, depending on which bit of the planet, calendar or celestial calculator you happened to believe. Sunset had been at 7.02pm, so technically we could have been sitting there quite legally for another hour and three quarters, but our own interpretation of the regulations was considerably less ambitious and we had decided that half an hour after dusk was probably a good time to pack up before somebody appeared from the bushes with a clipboard and a torch.
Anyway, enough astronomical nonsense, because we were there to catch fish rather than discuss the orbital mechanics of a medium-sized star, and there were certain swims along this stretch where the fish have a habit of switching on almost as soon as the light disappears. The trouble was that in the run-up to dusk both Nic and I were getting absolutely nothing apart from the occasional tentative nibble, which is the angling equivalent of receiving a text from someone saying “we need to talk” and then waiting for the inevitable disappointment.
I wasn't particularly optimistic, although optimism in fishing is usually something you leave at home along with the sensible footwear and any realistic expectation of success. Then, almost precisely on cue, official dusk arrived and something changed in my swim, with one fish topping that looked suspiciously chub-like and the first little tremors appearing through the rod blank and, via the cork handle, directly into the side of my leg.
Nic's swim, meanwhile, remained about as lively as a library after closing time, and for the next twenty minutes I sat on my hands rather than striking at every tiny movement, largely because I had already convinced myself that every twitch was either a fish or an overexcited piece of weed. Eventually those short pulls developed into something considerably more convincing, the rod arched over and suddenly I had a proper bite, a proper fish and the sort of excitement that makes all the earlier staring at an unmoving quivertip seem entirely worthwhile.
Initially I thought it was a chub, which would have fitted the circumstances rather nicely, but then Sean from Snagged Bro!! appeared over my shoulder like some sort of nocturnal fishing apparition and, under the beam of the headtorch, the truth was revealed. It wasn't a chub at all but a bream, which isn't quite the glorious climax you imagine when the rod suddenly folds over in the gathering darkness, but at least it was a fish and therefore officially better than sitting there catching absolutely nothing.
By this stage the curfew was creeping towards us, Nic remained resolutely biteless and I had one bream in the net, which meant there wasn't really any argument for hanging around other than the usual angler's belief that the next bite is always going to be the one that changes everything. We decided to call it a night, although I remain convinced that had we stayed another half hour the swim would have erupted into a frenzy of feeding fish, with the only thing stopping us being the club rules, common sense and possibly the police.
The thing is, I've always found that little window around dusk, and particularly the period immediately afterwards, can be when the magic happens, with fish suddenly appearing as if somebody has flicked a switch marked FEED NOW. Tonight was a perfect example, albeit one where the magic apparently came with a fairly strict time limit and only issued one bream as a complimentary sample.
So that's another swim on the stretch explored, another peg crossed off the list and another little piece of information filed away in the increasingly untidy cabinet of fishing experience. Nic has now added his swim to the official “don't bother” list, while I've learned that mine might be worth another go when the light fades, preferably before the astronomical definition of night catches up with the club's considerably more practical one.
Still, it was good to catch up and have a proper evening beside the water, even if Nic managed to blank while I somehow scraped together a bream and an inflated sense of achievement. Next time we'll try different pegs, keep our eyes on the light and see whether the magic decides to put in another appearance, although knowing my luck it'll probably arrive eleven minutes after we've packed the rods away.
Cracking fish Mick, probably the smallest of the group 😄
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