Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.44

The river greeted me like an old mate who’s borrowed twenty quid and still hasn’t paid it back familiar, slightly guilty looking, and a touch murkier than expected. After yesterday’s minor miracle of winkling out a few chub on cheesepaste (blessed be the stinky cube of dairy-based hope), I swaggered down to the syndicate stretch convinced absolutely convinced that I could replicate the magic. I even whispered to myself, “Lightning does strike twice, doesn’t it?” as though I was the lead character in some low-budget angling documentary with questionable narration.

But the fishing gods, much like the weather forecast, enjoy lying.

Negotiating the entrance track felt like starring in a budget remake of Ice Road Truckers, only in this version the road is made of sloppy Worcestershire mud and the truck is a slightly bewildered Suzuki Jimny, which I’m fairly sure weighs less than a Labrador with a healthy appetite. Still, up it climbed  a tiny automotive mountain goat with the determination of a toddler going for the last sausage roll at a birthday party. By the time I parked up behind the first swim, I was already congratulating myself on both the Jimny’s heroics and my questionable life choices.

Only then did I remember from the WhatsApp group chat : TRACK CLOSED UNTIL IT DRIES OUT. Marvellous. Typical. Exactly the sort of thing you want to discover after you’ve already slithered your way in like a penguin on a slip-n-slide. To be fair I lied, it was a doddle !!

But seeing as I was now effectively committed or possibly should be committed I decided it was a case of in for a penny, in for a soggy, mud-caked pound. The plan was simple, even elegant: bait a few likely chub haunts with stinky cheesepaste, wait for the tip to rattle, claim victory, go home smelling slightly worse than when I arrived.

A flawless strategy, I thought.

Except the first bite came from a minnow clearly experiencing an early life crisis. It inhaled my cheesepaste like it was auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent: Sword Swallowing Edition. A minnow! On cheesepaste! The river’s smallest resident had gambled big and, sadly for my pride, won. Still, the blank was technically avoided, even if the victory felt a bit like getting a round of applause for tying your shoelaces at age forty.

Down the stretch I trudged, disturbing a cormorant who gave me a look that suggested I was the one ruining its fishing. It flapped off like an indignant Victorian aunt, its day clearly ruined by my mere presence. I primed several swims with stealthy nuggets of cheesepaste and a little mashed bread the angling equivalent of throwing out free samples in the hope someone buys the full product.

Five swims, countless casts, two hundred and seventeen internal monologues about why I bother, and what did I get?

Nothing. Not a chub pull. Not a pluck. Not even the courtesy of a half-hearted nod from something small and uninterested. My bread was getting mullered by minnow, of course the aquatic equivalent of a late night kebab van: always busy, never what you actually want.

Yet and this is the sort of thing non-anglers simply will never grasp I still enjoyed myself. The frosts had revealed parts of the river I’ve not been able to access since approximately the Bronze Age. I discovered two swims that, when the river is lower and behaving itself, look like they could hold chub of suspicious girth. Proper ones. The kind that make you double-take, mutter “Oof, hello”, and wonder whether you need a bigger landing net.

And that’s the strange thing about fishing. Success isn’t measured solely by what you catch, but by the moments of promise, the gentle ridiculousness of the whole affair, and the sheer stubborn optimism that keeps you returning to the water’s edge when any sane person would stay inside and do something sensible… like hoovering, or taxes, or literally anything that doesn’t involve being up to your ankles in cold mud while debating whether a bird just judged you.

So while the chub were clearly off having a committee meeting elsewhere, ignoring me completely, the morning wasn’t wasted. Far from it. It was reconnaissance. It was fresh air. It was ridiculous, muddy, fishless, minnow-ridden joy.

On to the next one because someone has to give those chub a talking-to, and it might as well be me.

Warwickshire Avon - Balers and Ballistocardiographs

Fishing is great isn't it, take your mind off the modern world for that moment of time, anyway a tale of two halves this one, because after stopping off at the 'Untrodden' for bailiff duties during the middle of the day wasn't exactly ideal fishing weather, but with Sam's mate Matthew over from Chester and Sam pestered me to bring a float rod and catch his first fish.

Luckily the field had seen the haybailer recently so it was much easier to get around because it was a bit of a pain I must admit. Not so much the length of the crop, but the tiny bits that came off them and stuck to your socks. 

Matthew went home happy because not only has he a fishing licence of his , but he caught his first fish. In-fact he caught quite a few with Sam and Matthew taking it in turns to man the rod. The maggots were getting taken on the drop so simple tactics to winkle out a few fish, before the sun beat us up in to submission.

The water fight in the garden amplified after dinner so I buggered off to another stretch of the Avon where I'd fish in to dusk.

There was a match on the previous day and the chub and elusive (for me) barbel hadn't fed whatsoever so I was gutted that when I sneaked in to an elevated swim and dropped some bread crust into the swim, a chub after a couple of nudges took the bread where I struck and pricked the fish.

It looked a good fish too, but yes a stupid question, it never came back !!!

I tried another couple of spots but they were as cagey as anything so ditched the floating bread and got set-up and hour before dusk to see if I'd fair better when the light levels had dropped.

It's a nice swim this, shallow fast water upstream, tree cover over at the far side and a bed of reeds to my left. In the middle it carries some depth and that's where I'd drop the bait just off the creas. 

Sadly just one chub pull before the curfew kick-off time, however not entirely unexpected considering the conditions, but I'm sure a decent fish will turn up sooner than later. 

I'm enjoying just spending time outside now, despite the fishing not being brilliant, but my fishing time is about to be curtailed because the Wife has a well deserved break in Edinburgh from early Thursday through to late Monday so I'll be in charge of the reprobates. 

Still plenty of things planned and sadly none of it fishing and one of the planned trips we will be venturing into Birmingham on the train of all places for some revelry, wish us luck.

So one more day to go fishing and that is tomorrow where after a curry with a mate post work from the office, I'd have a few hours max to try and catch something half decent.

I plan to don my waders this time round however because I know where some decent chub have been hiding but they are difficult to get too. I will also fish a bait static at dusk again like I did before for a last gasp barbel before the drawbridge comes down.

On to the next one !!

The Tiny River Alne - Bitcoins and Biobibliography

The phone that I accidently dropped in the River Stour last Sunday was never to be seen again, however the insurance sorted it quickly and a new case and SIM card from EE all came on the same day. 

So 48 hours after the 'incident' and thanks to the iCloud I was back up and running again. I was a bit peeved that I lost £40 in notes in the process but it could be worse my name could be James Howells. 

You see James lost a computer hard drive he says has a fortune on it at the dump has threatened the council with legal action over its refusal to let him dig up the site. 

His hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoins was accidentally thrown out back in 2013 and since he has been battling for a decade for permission to dig up the Newport City Council landfill site on Docks Way to find the hard drive and access his coins, which he says are now worth a staggering amount.👀

But despite a tireless campaign, the council have argued that the chances of finding the drive, which James believes is now worth around £225m, are unrealistic.The computer engineer has previously hired environmentalists and data recovery experts from around the world to aid in his desperate search.

Now In 2021, James even hired NASA data experts Ontrack the data-recovery firm which recovered the battered drive from the Columbia space shuttle after it exploded in 2003. James has even offered the council a 25 per cent share in the funds, currently estimated at around £50 million, and has pledged to invest in his community, but that has fallen on deaf ears sadly.

Although I've fished the upper reaches of this stretch of the River Alne I've been fishing over the years I've not been up here for a good while. Well it was back in June I believe when I managed to catch a stoneloach by rod and line and by design. I per usual I didn't have much time but I had some maggots that needed a dunking and I fancied trotting to see what I could pick up.

Now the river finally has had some stability of late because it really has been unfishable over the last couple of months, where just when the water is back in the banks again all of a sudden the heavens open and it is back to being in flood again and spills out into the floodplains.

Just to get a few bites would be nice because the Alne isn't fishing particularly well of late I must admit,  and not fishing this area for a while I was hoping a change of scenery would be of benefit too, oh and when I drove over the bridge recently it looked a great colour. 

I didn't really have a swim in mind, so I'd get there first have a roam around and pick a likely looking swim. There are often minnows here in numbers and that was the concern I'd have even when trotting the fast water, but up at this bit there are gravelly runs that I was hoping would hold some dace up for a feed. 

I also wanted to try out my trotting set-up which was to dust of the 14ft Acolyte and pair it with Korum glide line and a newly purchased shallow spooled Drennan reel. The river has dropped considerably of late and probably a little too much really because well I just couldn't get in to a rhythm in the first swim so within half an hour without a bite I moved to the next swim where I disturbed the resident otter, and after popping its head out it went on its way.

The float was going down much nicer in the next swim however trot after trot after trot and feeding the swim with maggots nothing was showing whatsoever. Not even a minnow bite which is quite incredible for the river Alne. The sun was right in my face as well which didn't help, just one of those wasted sessions really, then again I was limited on time (as per usual) so the Alne was the only choice really.

So yes, the river was dead, proper dead  much like this sheep I assume !! It does explain the wall of ammonia I walked in to a couple of months ago. Anyway with the gear in the car still I might pop back out in the morning. This time at another stretch, maybe even Brazzers Breach, I'll decide in the morning. 

The Tiny River Alne - Foolocracy and Foghorn Leghorn

This week I have mostly been working !!!  I've been in the office twice, where sadly I couldn't switch off the person that was overly loud on their teams call, the bloke opposite coughing and trying to bring up one of his lungs, and the aircon / heater unit with blower set to max. 

Don't get that issue WFH now do you ☺

Even the remedial action to replace the Skullcandy Crusher Earpads (with a lovely green colour because they were cheap ) didn't blockout the racket from Foghorn Leghorn.

I might need to upgrade to the latest noise cancelling version ANC 2 versions but then I hate chucking stuff away when they are still working, and >6,000 mixcloud DJ mixes listened to, they are still going strong apart from the signs of wear, a bit like me I suppose, because I've been back on the weight training for a few weeks now and enjoying it. 

On the positive note due to working, working, working, my pension funds are growing nicely at the last inspection, because every year that goes by working for that extra pound, I could easily find more enjoyable things to do with my life. Even when I was a jobber (20 years or so) I made sure I ploughed in to a pension fund and I'm amazed how many people don't especially when I cannot claim state pension until I'm 67 👀😠

Anyway to the fishing, with the Wifes yoga kiboshed because of the cortisone injections she had in both hands and thumbs still a little sore I could go fishing instead. Now I could have jumped up and down for joy but rather than revel in her misfortune I played it down instead whilst silently giving myself a thumbs up ....

"I've cancelled yoga you might as well go fishing after work"

"yeah could do, ta, fancy a cup of tea ?"

The Alne was on the rise which is my experience is better for the fishing. Well looking at my blog anyway, but then this is the Alne, a moody river is there ever was one, just when you think it will fish well it will kick you in the googlies. The fish just seem to switch on more, I had this on the Wye too, the change in catch rate was undeniable. 

....Boom or Bust

Prosperity and Depression....

Anyway dace and chub were the target and I'd target two areas. Both deepish areas, the first area >6 foot and the second area a quite ridiculous 13.2ft when I decided to see just how deep it was. 

That scan was done when the river was motoring through and the swim was difficult to fish and I still to this day don't know what the fish were. 

Since the floods though I can approach the swim from the other side of the river and that it what I intended to do for this session.  How it got so deep God only knows because I can only imagine it was to do with the railway line that once ran through here, where the deep swim is yards from it.  The Alcester–Bearley branch line was a 6& 3⁄4-mile single-track branch railway line in Warwickshire, It was built by the Alcester Railway Company.

It connected the manufacturing town of Alcester into the Great Western Railway network, opening in 1876. Running through sparsely populated country, it was never commercially successful. During World War 1 it was closed and its track used in support of the war effort. During World War II it brought Coventry factory workers to a relocated manufacturing plant near the line when their own factory had been bombed.

The line closed in 1951 apparently.

It's the dace that keeps me coming back to this stretch, oh and the big trout that have eluded me thus far. But the closed season I'll have a dabble on the lures because it's one of those quests that needs to be concluded. Anyway I digress the 12 ounces dace I caught from here came on bread and that's what I would use for this session. 

The minnows were a pain last time and I thought bread might be the better option especially when in the coloured water it would stand out better than the pungent worm. 

I had worms as back-up though and when I arrived I'd bait the deep slack with some bread and fish that at dusk with a much bigger bit of bread to try and winkle out a chub. I've found the dace seem to switch off at dusk and beyond where the chub are often just gathering their knives and fork and awaiting that dinner bell.

Well I said that, best laid plans and all that, this is the Alne after-all !!

Well the small fish were on it because after about half an hour eventually the fish turned up. Small dace and fat minnows sadly and oddly after catching around 5 or 6 dace of similar stamp the swim went quiet. There was loads of small fry in the margins which was encouraging because apart from that there wasn't any fish showing at all.  

I'd pre-baited the last swim to fish so decided to head there earlier than anticipated where on arrival there was a small fish being chased by a predator. I've caught perch here in the past but they don't show that often. 

There was other fish topping as well so encouraging signs so at first I tried worm and maggots on the deep deck but after fifteen minutes without a bite I decided to switch to bread flake and stick it out to try and catch a chub.

Dusk arrived without even a nibble and despite having fingers and toes crossed that pull round never happened. I'm not sure what's going on with the Alne of late because it has been really tough going for some reason. I'm sure I'll give it another go before the season end but for now I'll try some other venues. 

The Tiny River Alne - Death Bridges and Deambulatories

A glimmer of flowing hope when I woke up on New Years Day, you see the Alne despite being over it's banks 24 hours before had dropped like a stone even faster like it usually does. 

The other local rivers as expected with yet MORE HEAVY RAIN OVERNIGHT !! meant that they were unfishable. 

The last day of holiday before I go back to work I was really disappointed just how bad the conditions were during my time off.  

Ok I got out plenty of times but because of the levels my options were limited like many anglers who fish flowing water like I do in the main. 

Now anything below 1.9 / 2 m's on the gauge the bridge of death can be negotiated and that's where the pegs are, that in spate conditions the fish tend to hold up.

Not only are the pegs deeper and sluggish which means that the fish can take some salvage away from the turbulent and past flowing water, but there are also some back eddies here as well which also seems to hold the fish.

I've found though that they are not always up for a feed, the theory is they gorge themselves when the river is on the rise and then put their feet up for a chill when the river starts to drop. 

If I look at my blog I've rarely fished it on the rise, but when I have done the results do seem to be better. The colour as well does seem to make some difference and even being chocolate brown as it was for the 2 hour short session there are bites to be had. 

The signs of the floodwater were plain to see when I got there with a rather large part of a tree blocking the bridge to access the lower end of the syndicate stretch. I removed it when I returned but hurdled it without issue en-route to the swims(s).

Simple tactics again with a groundbait feeder and half a dendrobaena tipped with a red maggot. A size 14 hook and a 1 ounce quivertip to amplify any bites.  

In the first swim I missed a couple of pull rounds of the tip where I struck in to nothing and then weirdly all went dead. I tried a bit of bread and that didn't make any difference so me, being me I went on the rove.

As soon as I dropped the rig in to a swim close in with cover to my left I got indications straight away on the tip. Even minnows register bites no problem on this set-up and that's exactly what the first fish was. Then I managed a few small dace and then back to minnows again all from the same swim.

 I returned to the main swim when that went quiet and managed a small dace first chuck but then out of the blue a proper powerful bite where the tip pull around a good foot and a half. The way it was fighting I knew it was a decent dace and once rested I weighed if where it registered 9.2 ounces 😎 

There is a cracking stamp of dace I've uncovered but it's hit and miss when they are there, and if you catch one sometime it's one on its own like it was for this morning, or bite after bite. And that was my lot, a self-imposed curfew to go and watch the darts and not exactly prolific, but a few bites in these conditions is all I could have asked for, and the first session of 2024 !!!

The Tiny River Alne - Cognac's and Consequentialisms

As a lover of McEwan's Champion Ale, I'm surprised Fuller's Golden Pride has passed me by as it's right up my street. To be honest it was a chance purchase from the Wife when she went to Waitrose to buy a new kettle to replace the one that went kaput, she decided some wine for herself and a couple of beers for me. 

Anyway somehow with some finger circling in the air she settled on this one. I'm sure God was looking down on me at that point, because I usually end up with mere mediocrity if Champion isn't on the shelves.  

Now from the marketing bumph equivalent in strength to Belgian Abbey beer or barley wine, Fuller's Golden Pride provides one of our richest drinking experiences. Described as the 'cognac of beers' by one leading beer writer, it's a deep-amber drop of distinction that finds favour with even the most discerning palate.

Rich, malty aromas lead to a similarly styled palate, with sweet and bitter flavours expressed in good balance. There's sweet orange oil, toasted grain and spicy fruit cake flavours on the tongue, and an intense, lasting finish. 

Long seen as something extra special, Golden Pride used to be gifted to Fuller's landlords at Christmas. They'd keep a barrel behind the bar, giving customers a chance to indulge over the festive period.

Certainly right up my street anyway, a beer to be savoured not quaffed so give it a go when you're passing the local Waitrose, I rival for Champion, quite possibly so, its got that sort of vibe.

Which poses a question why are the stores always packed with OAP's ? certainly not a cost of living crisis with these shoppers,  trollies full to the brim, anyway !!. not cheap at £2.95 a bottle but I'll be stocking up especially when winter hits and we are enjoying an open fire and a movie. Give it a go if you're in to this sort of beverage.

Now talking of big hitters the latest session down the Alne I wanted to fish for chub in to dusk. 

You see last last time I was here on the failed big gonk hunt there was some decent fish moving about just to the left of me that I'm sure were big chub. 

I've caught some nice fish here in the past but a 4lber would be a specimen on the stretch I fish and a few months back a holiday maker fishing from a bordering campsite said he'd caught a clonker at dusk that he estimated at 5lb. 

Now if it was I want in on that sort of fish especially from a small river that is so dear to my heart. The gonks were not forgotten though so I'd feed some bread mash in to a swim initially and then fish maggot on the bottom to try for a decent one before switching to bread as the light went.

 

I could fish the Warwickshire Avon for it's bigger residents but to be honest it's quite nice fish the closest river to me especially when it's thrown up some nice surprises. 

The latest being the 12 ounce dace, which to be honest has got me champing at the bit for better conditions.

Small rivers really do it for me at the moment and it just goes to show that there is PB potential in rivers that are often overlooked. 

Dace especially where some of the biggest I've caught prior to the capture on the Alne came from small local brooks when they are in flood. The types of waterways not admittedly for everybody, but for me, I love to find out what's actually in them, which over the years has been a bit of an eyeopener to be honest and long may it continue. 

After priming the swim to fish bread flake an hour in to the session I got fishing with maggots. It's not a good sign when the first, second, third and forth fish were minnows as a couple of sessions ago it was gonk, gonk, gonk, minnow, dace, gonk, trout, gonk !!!

The minnows had been filling themselves with the bread as well by the looks of it. On a positive note at least they were decent sized minnows. As dusk approached I had a couple of tiny gudgeon but nothing like the scale I was catching the other day. 

Dusk came and I fully expected a chub to gatecrash the party but nope the tip apart from the odd small knock never went round sadly. So a good half an hour with the tip illuminated by a torch thankfully the battery was on its last legs so I was forced to leave to be able to negotiate the bridge of death.

Such a disappointing trip as I expected a lot more, but that's fishing for you. I've not had anything decent for a while, I need to up the game a little me thinks, because I don't really want more sessions like this. 

The Tiny River Alne - Albinos and Alcoholometers

Now as we know Anglers are prone to telling lies. A sad reflection on the practitioners of the Noble Art, but unfortunately true. Psychologists have come up with several reasons for it, including:

POETIC LICENCE: Every angler is a poet at heart, and so given to the poet's natural habit of embellishing the boring old truth to make a story worth listening to. Who wants to hear about a one-eyed gudgeon, for God's sake? or an albino bullhead !!! well I do. 

COMPETITIVE SPIRIT: It's a cruel, hard world we live in, with every man trying to prove that he's the greatest. So when those around you are boasting nineteen to the dozen, what are you supposed to do? 

CREDIBILITY GAP: Nobody believes an angler, anyway, least of all his fellow anglers. So it's no use telling them you landed a 20 lb carp: they'll knock a good third off the weight for starters. 

Tell 'em you caught a 30 lb carp. By the time they've finished their mental arithmetic, they'll have got it right. 

INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIA: Open any angling publication and what do you see? Monstrous fish being smirked over by immodest captors. These, you are told, are the only fish worth taking notice of. Makes you spit.

FAULTY OBSERVATION: A fish always looks bigger underwater, especially if it's fighting hard. Often all the angler sees of a fish which breaks him is a flash of scales from its flanks. Who's to say it's not four feet long?

SENSORY DEPRIVATION: Sitting all day cocooned in weatherproof clothing causes sensory deprivation, one common symptom of which is hallucination. Nothing like a good hallucination to tell in the pub. Which brings us to:

THE DEMON DRINK: Now that's a bit more like...

Well you say that I've been off it for a while, the odd glass of wine, and the odd beer but to be honest I've not really missed it after 3 weeks of holidays. I'm sleeping better I must admit so maybe I'll continue on with the odd drink here and there. Much like my fishing I suppose the odd session here and there. Now with a river Zander session planned with Nic skirting the high winds of Storm Agnes, I fancied a dabble for the gudgeon down at the Rive Alne. 

I've stumbled upon a swim where there could well be a PB beater, so with the river conditions all a bit naff I was well up for giving it a go. The best Sam and I have mustered up so far is 32 grams or 1.13oz which ain't a bad gudgeon until you're told the British record is 5 times that, wtf !! 👀. Still ignoring that for a sec I've gudgeon to catch. 

This time I'd have the small drug dealer scales with me because I'm sure the biggest of the Gonks I managed to catch last time here was a PB it was certainly up there with the larger ones I've caught over the years.

What I didn't expect though was the first few fish were minnows that were determined to get the maggots. This is with the bait dragging the bottom too to try and intercept those bottom feeding Gonks. This was turning in to a totally different session to last time though as the bites were much much harder to come by.

I was going to move but then out of the blue I managed a small'un so I continued on in the swim where in and amongst the minnows there was the odd gudgeon. The problem was nothing like the scale of the ones I was catching the other day.

Just out of interest I popped the biggest of them on the scales and it only registered 0.5 ounces which when I looked back at the pics of the other ones I caught on the previous session these were a 1/2 / 1/3 of the size., so it's a shame I didn't have the scales with me last time.

Still I've got a gauge on how big they are now so at least I know not to forget them next time. That's where the fun ended because boy it couldn't be a more different session than last time. I moved swims for 10 minutes where it was minnow after minnow and then had to re-rig after casting in a tree 😁

I started to lose the light where I was hoping things would pick up but sadly, no they didn't. A tough session indeed even though I caught the old gudgeon not the size I was after.  

The Tiny River Alne - Pigs Breakfasts and Pigmentocracy

If I look back at my blog some of the biggest dace I have caught has been when targeting the small streams and tiny rivers. The little streams especially when the water has been chocolate brown and nearly over their banks really do throw up some nice fish and the Alne well, it's a bigger version of those really.

These are relatively untapped waters and ok it would be nice to trot a float in clearer waters but for some reason, when it's coloured the fish start to show up all of a sudden and the bigger fish make an appearance and often a ledger set-up is the way to go. Trust me a decent dace can pull a 1 ounce tip like a chub can. They don't mess around. 

So whilst the waters were good enough for Augustus Gloop I was back to see if the 12 ounce dace was a lucky capture. Now it was the missed bites on the last session and sessions before that got me scaling down the rig where the culprit revealed itself. I wanted to fish similar conditions albeit the river had dropped slightly and the wind was non existent. 

So for this trip out 48 hours later I changed to a 14 hook with a 2.5 lb hook length because there are still chub here after all and also bigger trout fight like nothing I've ever experienced really. They really turn in the Tasmanian Devil where just hanging on for dear life is the only option at the proceeding seconds following the hook-up. 

A brown trout's heartbeat is slow and regular, approaching its maximum rate only 1 per cent of the time. Because x square metre of river bottom contains enough food to keep a trout for a week, the fish spends most of the time stationary. How they go from idlers to full on Chuck Norris is something to behold. 

Apparently from what I have read if a trout is removed from its regular swim and put back in the strange part of the river, it gets into a state of anxiety and its heart races until it finds way 'home' again. Sometimes a trout's heart will miss a beat when a shadow passes over the water or when a fly is cast above it. 

I had bread, maggots and a few casters and would concentrate on this one swim. Very unusual for me but I've always had bites in this swim, had a dace drop off, and it just so happens chatting to the other angler that was down there last time one of the rare matches was won of this peg, an yes, he had some nice dace ironically.

Dace Utopia ? or Pigs Breakfast ?

Well what a difference a couple of days made, because the water had changed colour dramatically no longer was it Taylor Hot Java Lava Coffee coloured (strength 6 btw) but a washed out teal colour. There was literally no big fish showing whatsoever. Minnow were on to the maggots straight away and after 5 or so hooked themselves I switched to bread which was the downfall of the specimen dace.

But nothing strikable where assume the mass of minnows were trying to nibble their way through it. I changed swims after an hour and a half rather frustrated but to the same result sadly, so I was quite thankful when the church bells sounded end of play. I'll be back !!! 

The Tiny River Alne - Zombies and Zoogyroscopes

Now if you didn't know Shudder is an American over-the-top subscription video on demand service featuring horror, thriller and supernatural fiction titles, owned and operated by AMC Networks. The streaming service offers original films and TV series like Creepshow, inspired by the 1982 movie of the same name directed by George A. Romero.

A zombie movie set in a plastic surgery hospital practically writes itself, and that's supposed to be the charm of "Yummy." What's it about? Just check the poster tagline—"facelifts, boob jobs, and zombies." 

The script, from director Lars Damoiseaux and Eveline Hagenbeek, certainly involves topless zombies, an enlarged penis meeting, an over-the-top doom, and plenty of bodies getting ripped to shreds. 

But “Yummy” has very little to say ever about how people want to change their bodies aside from pointing out that it's a thing, while the other half of its very small brain still wants to leer anyway. 

It can't offer any wit to its tiresome cynicism and horniness, and all of its body parts, zombies, and forgettable characters are treated as wholesale. I mean come on what do you expect movie reviewers, it's a comedy zombie movie. 🙈🤣 An hour and a half long, brain out entertainment with one of the funniest scenes I've seen in a comedy movie, it was that funny I rewound it and watched again, and laughed just as much.

Anyway talk about brain out entertainment with an a two hour window to go fishing the only viable choice was the river alne a short distance away. Two minutes to get the lure rod and bag sorted, 5 mins in the car jobs a good'un.

When it's low and clear like this a shallow running lure can often get the predatory fish such as trout, perch and chub up for a smash and grab.

The tiny Salmo minnow is perfect for the conditions as it dives a foot or so under the water and you can still see it perfectly in the clear conditions.  

Such a simple method of fishing and these small rivers are perfect to get a few bites even though the fish may not be that big. Over the years a 4lb chub and 2lb trout are about the biggest I've managed but I've lost bigger trout and that's why I keep on coming back, well there is the fact it's so handy and 99 times out of 100 it's just me fishing it.

There are some deeper areas of this river but I like the shallow areas where I can get in to the river and get in to those nooks and crannies' and the darker areas where the fish hold up.

A few trout and a couple of  baby ones succumbed to the lure and then out of the blue a small perch that grabbed the lure literally right by my feet. It's the fact I'm in complete solitude and left to my own devices in a river that defines me as an angler is hard to fault. 

 In the last deeper swim where I'm elevated a couple of flashes where a trout has swiped at the lure out of the blue a bigger one turns up and grabs the lure confidently, realises he's hooked and almost in suspended motion wriggles like a good un, where I try and set the hook, it wriggles again and this time gets free Damn It !!!. 

Not one of the bigger ones that I've also lost here, but probably a 2lber and a fish I certainly like to land, oh well another day. That fishing fix sorted, what's not to like !!!