Warwickshire Avon - Fish Whisperers and Flagellomania

So, we are back on the Warwickshire Avon, Nic and I, and to be honest it has been a while. Not because I have fallen out with the river, or because the river has specifically asked for a restraining order, but simply because life, work, family, weather, fish and the general nonsense that surrounds trying to go fishing all seem to conspire against actually going fishing.

Nic, on the other hand, has recently become something to appease the curtain twitchers, largely because his Seven Heaven Weir YouTube video has now accumulated something in the region of 35,000 views. Thirty-five thousand! I struggle to get thirty-five people to read one of my blog posts without threatening them with violence, yet Nic is now apparently an internet sensation and presumably spends his evenings signing autographs on luncheon meat tins.

I imagine the phone has been ringing constantly with offers of television work, book deals and Hollywood adaptations, although knowing Nic it is probably just somebody asking if he can guide them on the Wye. Still, fame is fame, and if he isn't signing autographs somewhere, he is probably guiding anglers around the River Wye and pointing knowingly at things while saying, "There's usually a fish there."

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”. 

The problem, however, was that nobody had actually bothered to quantify what constitutes night fishing, other than the wonderfully scientific explanation that fishing into dusk is fine and “night fishing is when it is fully dark”, which leaves us with the slightly awkward business of deciding precisely when fully dark actually is.

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.

Warwickshire Avon - Nurseries and Numismatography (Baby Barbel)

Well, autumn has certainly decided to announce its arrival, and judging by the temperature the other morning on the way to work, it had clearly forgotten to send a polite letter first. One minute we were enjoying the seemingly endless summer, the next I was sitting in the car wondering whether I'd accidentally driven north and ended up somewhere considerably closer to the Arctic Circle. It was, in other words, bloody chilly.

I'm not complaining though, because as much as the long, drawn-out summer was rather pleasant, after several weeks of sunshine and absolutely bugger all rain it did begin to feel like we'd been permanently relocated to Spain. The grass was turning the colour of an old pair of khaki trousers and every time you looked at the river you could almost hear it asking someone to please turn the tap back on. We like our seasons in Britain, or at least I do, particularly the ones where the weather becomes increasingly unsuitable for normal people and increasingly attractive to anglers.

There is something rather satisfying about the arrival of autumn, even if it does mean wearing a winter jacket before going to work while wondering where you put the gloves you haven't seen since February. The rivers start to look different, the trees begin throwing their leaves into the water with gay abandon and suddenly you can justify wearing six layers of clothing simply because you're going fishing. It is a wonderful time of year, provided you aren't expected to actually enjoy being outside for anything other than fishing.

Getting out this week was always going to be slightly problematic, largely because the diary makers had been at it again and filled the bloody thing with commitments. There is also the small matter of having a child with special needs at home, which means that although Sam is perfectly capable of looking after his brother for a couple of hours, anything much longer than that is something neither of us feels entirely comfortable with. That's just the way it is, and fishing, despite what some head wand donners who don't live in our shoes believe, occasionally has to take second place to real life.

The good news is that things are changing as Sam gets older, and the wife and I can now actually go out for a meal together without having to organise what resembles a military operation involving timetables, contingency plans and even rarer babysitters. Sam has grown up considerably, and not just vertically, although he is now taller than me which I find deeply offensive on a personal level. He also understands that from time to time he has to be responsible for his brother, which is something that has made life just that little bit easier.

Anyway, with the wife out, the house was mine, and apparently this was considered an opportunity for me to prepare myself some food rather than simply standing in front of the fridge repeatedly opening the door in the hope that something interesting would appear. The suggestion was, and I quote, "Why not make yourself some fish or something spicy?" which I interpreted as an instruction rather than a casual culinary suggestion. Naturally, I went for the second option because apparently I enjoy making decisions that will later have consequences for everyone around me.

What followed was a proper old-school garlic chilli chicken, the sort of meal where the recipe should really come with a warning from the Health and Safety Executive. By the time I'd finished cooking, the kitchen looked like a small explosion had taken place inside a Chinese takeaway and then decided to have a second go. There were chopped chillies everywhere, garlic on every conceivable surface and enough washing-up left behind to make me seriously consider moving house.

It was, however, absolutely bloody delicious, which is really all that matters when you've reached the point where the kitchen looks like evidence from a crime scene. I consumed enough garlic to ensure that for the following couple of days I wasn't so much breathing as exhaling a defensive chemical weapon. My work colleagues, unsurprisingly, were absolutely delighted when Friday lunchtime arrived and I finally disappeared from the building.

Forty-three hours had been ticked off for the week, the coffers were a few pennies heavier and I decided that enough was enough. I needed to go fishing, even if it was only for a couple of hours and even if the weather looked like it was considering throwing every possible variety of autumn at me simultaneously. So, on the way home, I decided to detour down to the Warwickshire Avon for a spot of trotting.

The swim I had in mind was one where you need to don the waders, which is always a good start when you're already slightly tired and the temperature has dropped sufficiently to make you question your life choices. 

Float peddler Dave Harrell had been down there not long previously and had apparently bagged up on chub and even managed a barbel trotting, which naturally made the whole thing sound considerably easier than it probably was. 

If Dave can do it, I thought, then surely I can too, although history has repeatedly demonstrated that this particular line of reasoning is deeply flawed.

I'd fished the stretch since Dave's visit and had previously enjoyed some success catching chub off the top on bread. Unfortunately, the warmer conditions seemed to have encouraged the bigger chub that had been sitting in the oxygenated water to relocate themselves to somewhere considerably more convenient for them and considerably less convenient for me. 

Still, I'd come this far and wasn't going home without at least having a poke around.

The weather wasn't exactly helping matters either, with a fairly strong wind blowing across the river and making the business of trotting a float look more like an exercise in remote-control boat operation. Despite wearing jeans underneath neoprene waders, after about two hours I was beginning to feel the cold creeping in. It was the sort of cold where you start telling yourself that you're perfectly comfortable while simultaneously wondering whether your feet can still actually feel anything.

The tactics were wonderfully simple, which is generally my preferred approach because the fewer things there are to go wrong, the fewer things I can subsequently blame. Six-millimetre mixed-colour pellets were loose-fed into the swim and a banded six-millimetre pellet was attached to a size 16 hook, which was about as complicated as the operation got. No twelve-page rig diagrams, no obscure Japanese hook pattern and no bait that costs more per kilo than the average family spends on groceries.

I fed the swim for about twenty minutes before making the first trot, mainly because I'd decided that the fish deserved a decent opportunity to arrive before I started disturbing them. The float went under and a small chublet was attached almost immediately, which was rather encouraging and also made me wonder whether I'd really needed to spend twenty minutes feeding the swim in the first place. Still, anglers are creatures of habit, and if you've spent twenty minutes throwing pellets into a river you feel obliged to pretend there was a carefully considered reason for doing it.

The next cast produced another bite, although this time the result was rather less satisfactory. The float disappeared, the fish shot off to the right with considerably more enthusiasm than the previous occupant and the hook promptly pulled just before it reached the safety of the reeds. Damn it, I thought, because that had probably been a decent chub and I'd managed to do the angling equivalent of dropping the winning lottery ticket down a drain.

Throughout the session it became increasingly obvious that the bigger chub simply weren't there, or if they were there they'd collectively decided to ignore me. The smaller chublets, however, were more than happy to keep me entertained and provided plenty of action, which is one of the reasons I enjoy trotting so much. You can spend hours chasing a particular fish and then suddenly realise that the smaller ones have actually provided most of the fun.

Then, completely unexpectedly, the float buried again towards the end of the run. The resulting fight didn't feel quite the same as the chub, and after a few moments it became apparent that I'd connected with something considerably more interesting than another small chub. It was a tiny baby barbel.

Now, I genuinely wasn't expecting that, and for a moment I just stood there with the sort of grin normally associated with somebody who has just discovered they've won something they didn't even enter. The little barbel had gate-crashed the chub party completely uninvited, but I couldn't have been happier to see it. Sometimes fishing has a funny way of giving you precisely what you didn't realise you were hoping for.

The significance of that little fish wasn't lost on me either, because this is one of the stretches affected by the severe fish kill back in June 2023. Thousands of dead fish, including mature chub, barbel and pike, were discovered along stretches of the Warwickshire Avon around Warwick and Barford, with angling subsequently suspended while the situation was investigated. The Environment Agency attributed the disaster primarily to low oxygen levels following sudden heavy summer storms washing accumulated road and gully pollutants into an already warm river, while local anglers raised other concerns including untreated sewage foam and pollution.

Whatever the precise combination of circumstances, the result was the same, and seeing so many dead fish was something that nobody who witnessed it is likely to forget. Rivers don't simply bounce back overnight from something like that, particularly when you're talking about mature fish that have taken years to reach any worthwhile size. Every surviving fish therefore seems a little bit more important, and every young fish feels like a tiny sign that the river is quietly getting on with the job of rebuilding itself.

I've caught barbel on this stretch during the previous season and have already had some this season as well, which has been hugely encouraging. But catching this particular little fish was different because it was so obviously young, and that made me wonder what the river might look like several years down the line if everything continues moving in the right direction. Perhaps that little fish will one day become one of those big, powerful Avon barbel that has some poor bloke standing in the reeds wondering why his rod has suddenly turned into a banana.

For me, that was the real highlight of the session. I hadn't caught anything big, I hadn't bagged up and I certainly hadn't achieved anything that would make the angling press sit up and take notice, but none of that mattered. Sometimes a fish doesn't have to weigh ten pounds to make an impression, and this one certainly did.

I sat there looking at the little barbel and couldn't help but smile. It was only a tiny fish, but given the history of the stretch it felt like a rather significant little fish, and one that I suspect I'll remember for a very long time. There was something rather special about seeing one of the next generation swimming around in a river that had been through such a terrible episode.

Eventually I packed away, climbed out of the waders and headed home feeling considerably happier than I had arrived. I'd been cold, I'd lost a decent chub, I'd caught a collection of chublets and I'd spent a couple of hours standing in a windy river wearing neoprene trousers like some sort of aquatic sausage. Yet somehow, that tiny barbel had made the whole thing worthwhile.

Fishing is funny like that. You can spend an entire season obsessing over big fish, looking at weather charts, river levels, moon phases and every other piece of information you can possibly find, only for the most memorable fish of the week to be something you could probably have carried home in a particularly enthusiastic cupped hand. It isn't always about what you catch, and occasionally the smallest fish can leave the biggest impression.

So, autumn is here, the temperatures are dropping and the rivers are beginning to look like proper fishing rivers again. The garlic has hopefully now vacated my pores, my colleagues have probably recovered sufficiently to return to work without fear and the diary makers have been warned that there are limits to how much of my life they are allowed to fill. Most importantly though, somewhere in the Warwickshire Avon there is now a tiny barbel swimming around, and for this angler, that was the icing on the cake.

Talking of Barbel, a link to Gale Lights podcast..

Warwickshire Avon - Pot Hunters and Piddingtonians

I’d not fished this particular stretch for barbel for quite some time, which is probably why, in a moment of complete irrationality, I suddenly developed the overwhelming urge to go and annoy one of them again. There are few things in life more predictable than an angler voluntarily returning to somewhere that has previously caused him considerable frustration, armed with exactly the same tackle and considerably more optimism. It’s a strategy that has served me badly for years, so naturally I saw no reason to change it now.

Upstream, since the fish kill in this area, there have been a few barbel coming out, which is encouraging, although the phrase “a few barbel” is quite sufficient to make an angler cancel weddings, birthdays, dental appointments and, if necessary, a minor operation. 

Tell an angler there are three barbel in a stretch and suddenly he’s studying Google Maps at two in the morning and explaining to his wife that he really does need to be there before sunrise because “the conditions are perfect”. This is despite the fact that the conditions are almost certainly identical to the previous forty-seven mornings when he stayed in bed.

Even I had managed to catch them in floodwater and towards the end of last season, so clearly something was going right, although I remain deeply suspicious whenever anything goes right in my fishing. 

Experience has taught me that good news on the river is usually followed shortly afterwards by a snapped hooklink, a lost fish or me standing in the car park wondering where I’ve put my keys. On one memorable occasion I found the keys in my hand, which probably says more about my state of mind than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, the swim I’d decided upon has a bit of history, although not necessarily the sort of history you’d want proudly displayed on the fishery website alongside pictures of smiling anglers holding enormous barbel. “This month’s featured swim: excellent depth, good cover and the location of a notorious illegal night-fishing incident” probably wouldn’t have quite the same ring to it as “Peaceful Riverside Peg With Stunning Views”. Although, to be fair, knowing there had been a bit of skulduggery there probably made it more attractive to me.

Legend has it that a professional pot hunter, who apparently had the same barber as Arthur Scargill, was once caught red-handed night fishing in this very swim, which, as these things tend to do, rather buggered things up for everybody else. I’m not sure whether the hairstyle was relevant to the crime, but once you’ve got a bloke skulking around beside the river at night looking like he’s just walked out of a 1984 miners’ strike, you’re probably going to remember him. It’s not every day you catch a barbel angler who shouldn't be there, who looks like he’s about to address a mass rally about pit closures.

The result is a strict curfew, meaning you have to be off the fishery half an hour after dusk, where using a head torch is apparently about as welcome as a relocated boat arrival to the Lib Dem voting village of Piddington. 

Now I’m not entirely sure what happened that night, but I suspect the fishery committee have never quite recovered from it. 

Somewhere in the club archives there is probably a handwritten document entitled The Incident, kept in a locked filing cabinet and brought out whenever somebody asks why they can’t stay an extra fifteen minutes.What I find slightly amusing is that nearly all of the stretch isn’t actually opposite houses, whereas some of the pegs that are have considerably less privacy and yet seem to contain rather more fish. 

Personally, I don’t particularly like fishing opposite houses because there’s always that nagging feeling that somebody is watching you through the curtains, wondering why a grown man has been sitting beside a river for four hours staring at a float that hasn’t moved. They probably also wonder why he occasionally whispers “come on” at it, as though the float is simply being deliberately difficult.

There’s also the possibility they’re wondering why you’ve just thrown half a pint of hemp into the river and are now looking at it expectantly, as though the hemp is about to produce a written response. But then again, if there are fish there, I have been known to overlook quite a lot of architectural inconvenience. I’d happily fish opposite Buckingham Palace if I knew there was a twenty-pound barbel underneath the bedroom window, although I might draw the line at being challenged by a member of the Royal Household especially Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor .

I suspect one reason those pegs produce so well is that one of the house owners feeds the swans, and I’m convinced a sizeable proportion of what she balls into the river doesn’t actually get eaten by a swan at all. The resident chub and barbel probably regard her as some sort of aquatic catering goddess, arriving daily with another complimentary buffet while we anglers stand downstream sprinkling pellets into the water and pretending we know what we’re doing. I can imagine the barbel forming a queue underwater, complete with somebody shouting, “Is she coming today?” and another replying, “Yes, excellent, cancel lunch.”

Frankly, if I lived there I’d be feeding them too, although I’d probably have a little sign saying “BARBEL ONLY – CHUB WILL BE CHARGED.” Followed by another saying “NO BLEAKS – YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE.” And possibly a third saying “PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANGLERS,” because judging by some of the people I’ve seen beside rivers, that may actually be the more important warning.

With dusk getting earlier and earlier as the weeks roll by, I’ve been thinking that this stretch could be ideal for a little campaign of my own. A few hours after work, a bit of barbel fishing and still home at a vaguely respectable hour for tea sounds almost suspiciously sensible for me. Normally my fishing plans involve being somewhere at an inappropriate time, carrying far too much equipment and returning home smelling like a combination of river mud, damp clothing and poor decision-making.

There is usually also a point where I question why I’m sitting beside a river in the dark while perfectly sensible people are indoors watching television. Then I remember I’m waiting for a barbel, and apparently that makes everything reasonable. This is one of the great mysteries of angling, because apparently sitting beside a river for three hours watching a motionless rod tip is completely acceptable if there’s a large fish involved.

The swim itself I’d not fished, bizarrely, even though I’ve been a club member for many years. You’d think after all that time I might have explored the place properly, but apparently I’ve been too busy fishing the same handful of swims repeatedly in the hope that one day the fish will finally surrender through sheer exhaustion. There is a certain logic to this, although I suspect the fish have probably worked out what I’m doing by now.

When you consider the shallow water coming down from upstream before it suddenly deepens off up from here, it’s an interesting little area. Over the years I’ve had both barbel and chub from those depths above here, which is always enough to make an experienced angler stop and look properly rather than simply chucking something in and hoping for the best. Although, obviously, I did briefly consider chucking something in and hoping for the best because old habits die hard.

I like areas like this because they stand out from the humdrum, and after years and years of fishing I’ve learned that if the water looks interesting, there’s usually a fish somewhere in it looking equally suspiciously at you. Quite possibly wondering what on earth you’re doing with that rod. Quite possibly also wondering why you’ve just spent twenty minutes staring at the swim before throwing a handful of food into it and then sitting down as though you’ve completed a scientific experiment.

Fish must think anglers are completely deranged. They probably have a support group somewhere under a tree root where they compare notes about the strange creatures who visit the riverbank. “This bloke turns up every Tuesday, throws food in the water and waits for us to eat it,” one probably says, while another replies, “Sounds serious, mate, you should move downstream.”

So, with the pot hunter swim chosen, the curfew mentally noted and the possibility of a swan-related food chain investigated from a safe distance, it was time to employ my usual Robin Red approach. 

There’s something reassuring about turning up at a river, looking at perfectly good water and then deciding what it really needs is a liberal application of something that smells like a mixture of paprika, toast and a doner kebab factory. 

I’ve never understood exactly why Robin Red works, but I’m increasingly convinced that if you put enough of it in the river, eventually something will turn up purely to find out what the hell is going on. Possibly a barbel, possibly a chub, or possibly an environmental health officer wondering why the river smells like someone has been cooking a kebab in the margins. At that point I’d probably pack up anyway, because explaining Robin Red to an official is considerably harder than explaining it to a barbel.

With everything sorted, I settled down and got fishing, knowing that I had a couple of hours before the river police apparently expected me to pack up and disappear into the gathering gloom.  

Now there is something wonderfully ridiculous about a curfew when you’re barbel fishing, because you can spend all day thinking about the session, drive home from work like a man possessed, rush down to the river, carry half your garage through the car park, carefully prepare the swim, bait up and cast out. Then somebody has effectively told you, “You’ve got about two hours, don’t get comfortable.”

The beauty of an after-work session is that you don’t need to catch much to feel you’ve had an evening out, although naturally I intended to catch something considerably larger than my expectations. Ideally something with a large mouth, broad shoulders and absolutely no intention of behaving itself. A barbel, in other words, although I’d have happily accepted anything that caused the landing net to leave the bank.

And with barbel slowly moving back into this stretch, a promising swim in front of me and Robin Red doing whatever mysterious things Robin Red does underwater, I had a feeling this could be the start of something rather interesting. 

Either that, or I was about to spend those limited hours staring at motionless tackle while feeding the river enough bait to make the local fish wonder whether Christmas had come early. Either way, I was perfectly happy, because when you’re sitting beside a river waiting for a barbel, apparently absolutely nothing happening is still considered a successful evening.

You go to the river hoping to catch a barbel and come home with a damp landing net, an empty bait tub, several kilograms of mud and a renewed appreciation for how little control you actually have over your life. You may not catch a fish, but you’ll definitely catch a cold, lose something and question at least three of your life choices. And, frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anyway better get fishing, Mick enough of the waffle !!!

When I arrived at the swim it was hard to miss, to be honest, as there was a massive oak tree to my right and a rather nice-looking peg right out in front of me, which is generally a promising start to proceedings unless, of course, you are standing next to the wrong tree. 

The swim had a fair amount of streamer weed and reeds in it, but there was a lovely bit of flow and a quick donk around with the lead revealed a couple of rather tasty little spots in which to park a bait. So, with the important investigative work completed, I fed a mixture of scalded pellet and a bit of groundbait and left it all to have a little rest while I faffed about getting myself sorted.

The Avon is currently about as clear as the water coming out of your kitchen tap, which isn't exactly what you would describe as prime barbel conditions unless your barbel have recently taken up snorkelling and developed an appreciation for being watched. 

However, there is method in my madness, because that little window leading up to dusk and extending into what I like to call the witching hour can sometimes produce when the rest of the day has been about as productive as a chocolate teapot. 

And frankly, if you are going to sit beside a river doing absolutely nothing for several hours, you may as well choose the bit of the day when the fish are most likely to ruin that plan.

Around forty-five minutes before official dusk, a simple underarm lob with a 15mm Robin Red pellet and a little PVA bag saw the bait land nicely on one of the spots. I was now officially fishing, although technically I had been fishing for years if you count all the time spent buying tackle, talking about fishing and looking at weather forecasts. 

The rod was on the rest, the river was flowing nicely and all I had to do was wait for a barbel to come along and make the whole thing worthwhile.

It took a good while before the first bite arrived and, when it did, it came completely out of nowhere and absolutely hammered the rod over. For a moment I thought I had hooked the Avon equivalent of a runaway shopping trolley, such was the speed at which the rod was attempting to escape towards the water. Chub were the obvious suspect, and while I certainly wouldn't have complained, the target was very much a barbel and I was hoping something with whiskers rather than something with an attitude problem.

The trouble was, I stupidly hadn't checked whether the pellet was still attached, which is one of those things that seems incredibly obvious about fifteen minutes after you should have done it. Sure enough, after wondering why the swim had suddenly gone completely silent, I reeled in to discover that my Robin Red offering had vanished without trace. The only explanation I could come up with was that I had abandoned my usual ridiculously oversized pellet stops in favour of an off-the-shelf Korum version, allowing either the pellet to break down or the fish to pull the whole lot through the hole and escape into the night carrying my dinner with it.

Fortunately, there was no need to sit there conducting a full forensic investigation into pellet stops because around ten minutes after official dusk the rod top gave a couple of proper clangs before immediately entering full-on meltdown mode. I picked it up and connected with something that instantly felt like a barbel, the first powerful surge telling me everything I needed to know as it hugged the bottom and attempted to introduce itself to every weed bed in the vicinity. After that it broke the surface and went completely Tasmanian devil, which was very considerate of it because it saved me the trouble of wondering whether I had actually hooked anything interesting.

At one point the fish was right out in front of me and I had to pull it through some of the streamer weed, which thankfully proved less troublesome than it looked from the bank. The barbel wasn't particularly keen on this arrangement and made several determined attempts to continue its evening elsewhere, but eventually I got it into the net. And there it was, a lovely Avon barbel sitting there looking considerably more impressive than the rather questionable pellet-stopping arrangements that had preceded it.

I let the fish rest in the net while I packed everything away, because there was no point rushing after getting the hard bit right. Once everything was packed I had a proper look at the fish, grabbed a quick trophy shot and admired another cracking Avon barbel before returning it safely to the river. It wasn't a double, but frankly I wasn't going to start weighing it on the scales of disappointment when it had just provided a thoroughly enjoyable little session.

With curfew upon me, I headed off home feeling rather pleased with myself and, more importantly, already thinking about the next trip. This fish has definitely spurred me on to fish this stretch of the Avon a little more seriously, particularly some of those pegs that I've rather conveniently neglected while convincing myself that there must be better ones somewhere else. There is something rather satisfying about turning up after work, sitting there through the fading light and nicking a barbel just as the river starts to disappear into the darkness.

The Avon might be ridiculously clear at the moment, but as long as you pick your moment and resist the temptation to spend six hours staring at an unmoving isotopic rod top, there are still fish to be had. Another Avon barbel safely returned, another excuse to go fishing, and another completely legitimate reason to ignore whatever sensible plans I might have had for the next evening.

On to the next one.

Oh and yes before you ask, I forgot my hat !!

Warwickshire Avon - Baitcasterisation and Bankchairmanship

Sam has, somewhat unexpectedly, started showing a bit of interest in fishing again, which is obviously a good thing although I'm not entirely sure whether my bank account is going to agree with that assessment. There was a time when trying to get him interested in fishing was a bit like trying to persuade a cat that having a bath would be an enjoyable experience, so any sudden enthusiasm has to be encouraged before it disappears again.

Consequently, when he said he was happy to join me at the BIG Fish N Show at Baden Hall Fishery on Saturday, I wasn't going to start asking awkward questions about exactly why he wanted to go. Sometimes in life you simply accept a minor miracle when it happens and ask questions later.

The BIG Fish N Show is a relatively new addition to the angling calendar and it was the fact that it was being held outside that initially sparked my interest. I'm not quite sure what this says about me because the words "outdoor fishing show" and "British weather" aren't exactly a combination that normally fills me with confidence. 

Still, there were apparently loads of well-known anglers going to be there and I thought surely it couldn't be that bad, could it? Famous anglers, tackle manufacturers, fishing lakes and the prospect of spending several hours looking at fishing gear I didn't know I needed seemed like a reasonably good way of spending a Saturday.

The journey up wasn't too bad either and after about an hour and fifteen minutes travelling up the M6 we rolled into Baden Hall at around 9.00am. The car park was already pretty busy, which suggested that a significant proportion of the British angling population had independently arrived at exactly the same conclusion as us.

You always know a fishing show is going to be reasonably well attended when you start wondering whether you've accidentally parked at the wrong event. There were cars everywhere and people wandering around with the unmistakable look of anglers who had already mentally spent money despite not having got through the entrance yet.

Having never been to Baden Hall Fishery before, I was actually quite impressed with the place. The lakes looked pretty decent and there was plenty of space, although obviously my first thought was less about the quality of the fishery and more along the lines of "I wonder what's in there?"

There was one lake absolutely full of match anglers, all looking incredibly serious. They had the sort of concentration normally associated with bomb disposal, despite the fact that most of them appeared to be fishing for things that probably wouldn't have eaten the contents of my bait box if I'd thrown the entire thing in.

Another lake had more specialist anglers fishing, which was much more my sort of thing. There is something about specialist fishing that appeals to me because nobody seems quite as stressed about whether they've had 37 fish by lunchtime and whether the angler next to them has had 38.

The show itself had a reasonable turnout from the tackle manufacturers, with Trakker and Fox being particularly prominent. The carp anglers were absolutely loving it, especially the latest bivvies and bedchairs, and I have to admit that the modern bedchairs are bloody impressive.

They've come on enormously since the days when a fishing bed was essentially a folding metal frame with a thin piece of material stretched across it. Some of the modern versions look more comfortable than the bed I sleep in at home, and I'm beginning to think the only thing missing is somebody bringing you a cup of tea and asking whether you'd like the curtains drawn.

The Tempur mattress might have finally met its match. If you can get a bedchair with adjustable lumbar support, memory foam, a pillow and enough room to turn over without waking up your neighbour, I'm not sure why anybody would ever go home again.

The obvious problem is that the modern carp angler now seems to require more equipment to go fishing than I have in my entire house. Rods, reels, bivvies, bedchairs, sleeping bags, alarms, tables, chairs, cooking equipment and probably enough spare clothing to survive the Battle of the Somme.

I suppose if you're going to sit beside a lake for 72 hours waiting for a carp to eat a boilie, you might as well be comfortable. Personally, if I'm going to spend three nights beside a lake without catching anything, I generally just call it a holiday.

The Predator tackle stand was probably the busiest stand there, certainly from what I could see. There were people absolutely everywhere, and judging by the amount of tackle being carried away I suspect they must have had a fairly successful weekend.

Predator anglers are an interesting bunch because there seems to be an almost unlimited number of lures available for catching fish that are quite capable of eating virtually anything. Yet somehow you still need 47 different colours, four different sizes and something that looks like a diseased duck.

Sam was particularly taken with the Predator stand and eventually picked up an Abu Black Ops rod and reel. To be fair, it looked pretty cool, and there is something about black fishing tackle that makes you feel considerably more serious about your fishing even when you're standing on the bank wearing an old fleece with a crisp packet in the pocket.

I suspect that was probably at least 60 percent of the reason he bought it. The other 40 percent was probably because it looked like something you'd expect to see being used by a special forces operative in a film.

The Korum boys were there too and I had a chat with Harry Pardoe, who I've met before riverside where I put him on to some river Zander. It's always nice bumping into people you know at these things because you can immediately stop pretending you're interested in whatever stand you're standing in front of and have a proper conversation.

I've got a slightly complicated relationship with Korum gear these days. Some of their stuff is genuinely very good, while other items leave me wondering whether somebody has simply walked around the warehouse shouting "we need another product" and then put a logo on whatever happened to be lying on the floor. You just have to cherry-pick the good stuff from the dross. It's a bit like shopping in a charity shop, except everything costs more and there is considerably less chance of finding a decent pair of curtains.

The Winning Ways guys were there as well and there were loads of other familiar faces wandering around. Jeremy Wade was apparently there, which seems entirely appropriate because if there's one man who looks as though he could find a prehistoric monster hiding underneath a pallet, it's Jeremy Wade.

Terry Hearn was also apparently there, although despite wandering around for quite some time I never actually saw him. This has led me to believe that Terry has perfected some sort of advanced camouflage technique involving a hat, a hoodie and standing quietly behind a display of terminal tackle.

Then there were the YouTubers. Quite a lot of YouTubers, actually, which is probably something that every modern fishing show now has to have or the younger generation might suddenly remember that they could be outside actually fishing. Cal and Dani and Tom Wilshaw pedalling his coffee it's nice to actually see these people in person. 

The queue to see Carl from Fish With Carl was absolutely enormous. It seemed to stretch on forever and people were patiently waiting for their chance to meet him, have a photograph and presumably tell him how many times they'd watched his latest video. The queue was so long that I started wondering whether some of them had brought camping equipment. Which, given the amount of carp gear available at the show, wouldn't actually have been difficult.

Alan Blair was there as well, although by the time I saw him it looked as though he was having to make do with what could only be described as the dregs. I suspect this was probably exaggerated in my head because Alan still seemed to have plenty of people around him, but compared with the Carl queue it looked like he had been allocated the overflow car park.

I'm sure he wasn't bothered though. If you're Alan Blair, you're probably quite used to people wanting to talk to you, although I would imagine there comes a point where you start hoping somebody will ask you about the weather just so you can have a normal conversation. 

I managed to have a chat with Matt Hayes, which was one of the highlights for me. I've watched countless hours of his television programmes over the years, so it was quite strange standing there having an ordinary conversation with somebody whose face has been on my television for years.

Thankfully he was a thoroughly nice chap and very easy to talk to. There's always a slight danger when meeting someone you've watched on television that they turn out to be completely different in real life, but fortunately there was none of that. I didn't ask him whether he'd ever wondered what happened to all the fish he'd caught on television. I'm sure the answer is probably more complicated than "they're still in the river".

I also had a good chat with Jack Perks, who is much more on my sort of wavelength. He's one of those anglers who seems equally happy targeting the smaller species as he is going after the bigger stuff, which is something I can relate to.

There is something very satisfying about catching a small fish that you've deliberately targeted. You don't always need a fish that looks like it needs its own postcode to make a fishing trip worthwhile.

Apparently Jack is going to be fishing for tuna and blue shark soon, which is quite a leap from some of the smaller species he targets. I did briefly wonder whether he would be taking a 10ft feeder rod and a tin of luncheon meat, but presumably he'll have something slightly more substantial.

I bought a book from Jack as well and got him to sign it. I now own a signed book by Jack Perks, which makes me feel considerably more cultured than I actually am.

Of course, owning a signed fishing book doesn't necessarily mean you are going to read it. At the moment it's sitting somewhere safe, which is usually the first stage in ensuring that you never see it again. Cal and Dani were there too, along with Tom Wilshaw and Danny from Danny's Angling Blog on the Korum stand. There really was a decent selection of people there and, for a relatively new show, it seemed to have attracted a fair amount of interest.

The weather, inevitably, had decided that it wasn't going to make things too easy. We had a series of showers coming through, which meant everybody was repeatedly putting waterproofs on, taking waterproofs off and then putting them back on again five minutes later.

It's the traditional British outdoor experience. You don't actually dress for the weather, you dress for all possible weather conditions simultaneously and then spend the day carrying the clothes you aren't currently wearing.

The Angling Trust had clearly identified an opportunity. They were selling umbrellas for a tenner to people stuck in the queues and, judging by the number of them being carried around, they must have shifted quite a few.

There's something very British about paying ten pounds for an umbrella because you've voluntarily attended an outdoor event in September. Somewhere in the distance, a weather forecaster was probably laughing. I did think about buying one, but then remembered that I already own approximately 14 umbrellas, none of which are ever where I need them. This is one of the great mysteries of domestic life.

You can have six umbrellas in your house and still leave home in the rain without one. They don't disappear exactly, they simply relocate themselves to places where they become completely useless. Eventually we'd seen enough and decided to head home. It had been a good day though and, considering we'd spent most of it walking around looking at fishing tackle rather than actually fishing, I'd say it had been a success.

Then came the small matter of the M6. The motorway had apparently decided that Saturday wasn't difficult enough already and there was gridlock traffic, so eventually I ended up using the M6 Toll.

Twelve quid.

Twelve bloody quid.

There is something deeply offensive about paying £12 for the privilege of driving on a road because the free road has decided to stop functioning. I kept expecting somebody at the toll booth to hand me a small complimentary packet of crisps as compensation.

Still, we got home eventually and Sam was keen to try out his new baitcaster the following morning. This was rather encouraging because the last thing I wanted was for him to spend a load of money on a rod and reel and then leave it sitting in the corner looking decorative.

So Sunday morning saw us heading off to a new water for me this season. The river was low, clear and sluggish, which are three words that don't exactly fill you with confidence when you're hoping to catch a predator. Still, we gave it a go. We tried numerous lures, changed colours, changed sizes and generally went through enough tackle to make it look as though we'd been commissioned by a lure manufacturer.

The river looked absolutely beautiful though. Gin clear water, low levels and that sort of quiet Sunday morning atmosphere where you can convince yourself that the fish are definitely there and you're merely waiting for the right moment.

Eventually there was a sign of life and a reasonable pike took a Replicant lure. Suddenly everything changed because when you're lure fishing for pike and something actually grabs the lure, all the previous hours of fruitless casting are immediately forgiven. Unfortunately the pike didn't seem particularly interested in remaining attached to the lure. After the first proper pull off the rod, it simply came off.

There was no dramatic conclusion, no photograph and certainly no fish in the net. Just that horrible moment where you realise that the thing you've been waiting for all morning has happened and lasted approximately three seconds. The pike presumably swam away feeling rather pleased with itself. I imagine it is now telling the story to other pike about the day it encountered two anglers who spent several hours throwing things at it and then managed to lose it when it finally decided to cooperate.

Sam, meanwhile, seemed to take to the baitcaster remarkably quickly. He got the hang of casting it almost immediately, which was slightly irritating because I was expecting there to be a reasonable amount of shared suffering.

Instead, he looked as though he'd been using one for years. There is nothing quite like watching someone else pick up a piece of fishing tackle for the first time and immediately work it out while you're standing beside them wondering why yours has just produced a bird's nest.

For me, the baitcaster represented a considerably steeper learning curve. There are knobs everywhere. Little knobs, big knobs, magnetic knobs, braking adjustments and various other things that apparently need to be altered depending on the lure, the wind, the line and presumably the phase of the moon.

I spent a considerable amount of time fiddling with things. Every adjustment seemed to produce a different result and I was beginning to feel less like an angler and more like somebody repairing a malfunctioning washing machine.

Eventually you get a cast that works beautifully and think you've cracked it. Then you make another cast and the reel immediately explodes into a bird's nest that looks like you've been knitting with fishing line.

Still, Sam was getting on with it brilliantly. If he continues at this rate, he'll soon be teaching me how to use mine that is gathering dust, which would be quite humiliating but probably inevitable. After Sunday dinner I decided that I needed some peace and quiet, so I headed off to the syndicate stretch. There is something rather nice about going fishing after Sunday dinner, particularly when everybody else is occupied doing something that doesn't involve you.

The river was still low and clear and, once again, the fish appeared to have decided that today wasn't the day. I had a couple of small pulls, but nothing materialised into anything meaningful.

Sometimes you can spend hours fishing a swim knowing there is almost certainly a fish somewhere nearby, but getting it to actually do anything is another matter entirely. It's like knowing somebody is in the house because you can hear them moving around but they refuse to answer the door.

I stayed into dark anyway. There's always that thought that perhaps the fish will switch on as daylight disappears, and if you've already spent several hours sitting there, you might as well give yourself the opportunity to be disappointed in the darkness as well.

The beauty of fishing into dark is that everything becomes more mysterious. Every little pluck feels significant, every swirl could be a fish and every noise in the bushes becomes either an otter, a deer or something that is about to murder you.

Usually it's a leaf.

On this particular occasion I had my comfortable chair with me, complete with lumbar support. This is another sign that fishing has gradually changed over the years because once upon a time I would have happily sat on anything that vaguely resembled a chair.

Now I'm apparently looking for ergonomic support.

The lumbar support was actually very good. So good, in fact, that I began to wonder whether it was perhaps working a little too well. At some point during the evening I became aware that I had apparently drifted off. Not a full night's sleep obviously, but enough of a nodding session to make me question whether I was actually fishing or simply conducting a long-term experiment into the sleep-inducing qualities of riverside chairs.

The worst thing is that you wake up and immediately look at the rod as though you've been keeping a close eye on it. Nobody needs to know that you were asleep.

You look around, adjust the rod slightly and adopt the facial expression of somebody who has been intensely analysing the water for the last twenty minutes. Meanwhile, your chair is sitting there looking extremely guilty. There is something very peaceful about fishing into darkness though. Even when you're not catching, there's the sound of the river, the occasional movement in the margins and the feeling that you're temporarily removed from all the normal nonsense of everyday life.

And sometimes, apparently, the lumbar support removes you a little further than intended.

So the weekend produced one escaped pike, a new baitcaster, a signed book, another fishing beanie, some leads, several conversations with anglers I've watched on television and enough tackle browsing to make my bank account feel slightly nervous.

Sam seems to have rediscovered his interest in fishing, which is probably the biggest success of the whole weekend. If nothing else, we've now got somebody else in the house who can justify buying fishing tackle, which is an opportunity that absolutely must not be wasted.

The BIG Fish N Show was actually a very good day out. The weather could have been kinder, the M6 could have been less ridiculous and the M6 Toll could perhaps have been £12 cheaper, but I'd definitely go again next year. And if the show continues to grow, I expect the queues will get even longer, the tackle stands will get even bigger and the carp bedchairs will eventually become indistinguishable from actual beds.

At which point I may finally give in.

Because if I'm going to spend a few hours beside a low and clear river catching absolutely nothing, I might as well be comfortable.

In fact, if anybody knows where I can get one of those modern carp bedchairs with lumbar support, memory foam and a built-in cup holder, let me know.

I'll probably need somewhere to put the kettle while I have my afternoon nap.

Because clearly this is what fishing has become.

BIG fish, expensive tackle, baitcasters, celebrity anglers, motorway tolls and a comfortable chair from which to watch absolutely nothing happen.

And, if you're lucky, one pike that falls off.