Warwickshire Avon – Ace in the shoal

The exuberant smash and grabbers were here in a large shoal previously and after seeing the flanks of an extremely large perch showing itself when retrieving one of the live baits the near 2lber I eventually caught did nothing to quell the mystery.

This was far bigger…

The feeding frenzy of bright silver flat sided herring like bleak must be such a visual eye candy to the predatory Perch but I would suspect they would fail more times than they would succeed such is the Bleaks speed. They are superfast…

…but not under a 6g Pike float.

Having run out of time before I could find out what lurked within the swims depths, I came better prepared for this session as in addition to the dinky Pike float and size 6 Kamasan B693 set-up I made up a dedicated bleak catching rod and a bucket for holding the quarry. A size 18 barbless hook donned with a fake maggot, a self hooking weighty puddle chucker and maggot aplenty. Previously I’d changed hooklinks via a quick change bead, which was a pain in the proverbials, I wanted to maximise the preys’ exposure in front of a fat greedy perch as I could catch more bleak if need be whilst waiting the float to go under.

This is one of the narrowest swims on the Avon I fish, with a long run up I’d say jumpable. It’s got stupidly thick far bank cover and despite the pace of the river due to the bottle-necking there is an unusually large area of slack that the float can be positioned. What the last session taught me was that the suspended and tethered Bleak will eventually move it off target and it will need to be re-positioned but often the prey fish will be cover bound and a few turns of the reel it’s back in the target zone again.

The problem was I couldn’t fish as the light was fading so a bright sunny day with no cloud cover wasn’t ideal for perch fishing. Despite the recent rain, it was gin clear too which would probably mean the bigger wish would be tucked away. I thought causing a disturbance in the water with feeding bleak might get them interested. 

Catching the bleak was pretty easy, they seemed to prefer the faster water and trundling the float down a fish I had more or less a fish every chuck. I kept a small bucket of water for the baits which would be returned when the session was over. I suspect a net full could be easily achieved if that’s your thing.

Half an hour passed without much interest but then the float sailed under and I struck in to a fish, damn a small jack Pike. I landed it under 5lb power pro and recast as well as feeding maggots in to the swim. Not long after the float sailed under but again, another Pike, this was hugging bottom and eventually it let go of the fish. The Perch didn’t seem to be interested so I changed to a 12lb soft braid and sure enough the float didn’t stay afloat for very long, straight under it went. A nice fight on light tackle but not a huge Pike, I didn’t weigh it but looked 6lb or so.

With the swim knackered I tried a couple of swims upstream without interest so returned to the swim and eventually managed a small perch but then it went very quiet with no more fish caught. I’ll return again to try and capture the ace in the shoal but I’ll wait for more favorable conditions.

Warwickshire Avon - Bleak Expectations

It was overcast but not ideal Perch conditions, the Avon is still proper gin clear however I found myself with a three hour window of fishing opportunity and jumped at the chance. Just a decent Perch would nice. I know a swim where there are bleak in huge numbers so with a pint of maggots I decided to catch a few and keep them in the landing net and fish three swims for Perch.

Bleak are an excellent live bait for Perch, they are an ideal size and suspending them under a 6g Pike float gives enough resistance to slow the super fast alburnus and gives the Perch a chance to catch its prey. The first swim is riddled with Jacks but I've caught decent Perch here in the past so only for this swim I fished some Drennan soft braid. The reeds provide cover for all manor of predators and within 10 minutes or so the float properly shot under, yeap a Jack, arrrrh

I'm not sure why some anglers struggle with unhooking Pike, take your time is the key, upside down and between ones legs. Tease open the mouth and it's a large cavity to remove the barbless hook. After the 3rd Jack I moved downstream to a swim with plenty of tree cover and it was in the shade. Before I fished the first swim I chopped up a few worms and threw in a handful of red maggots. Perch don't mess around so if they are in the swim they will quickly take a bait....

...so after half an hour and biteless I moved back to the bleak swim and caught another 3 or so and decided to fish a bit of slack water by some cover. I could still see the bottom on most of the swim so not ideal but with a bleak positioned and slowed in its tracks it didn't take long for the float to sail under, maybe I was premature with the strike but I could clearly see the large flanks of a fish and it swam back to the depths. Another bleak went out and positioned in the slack and sure enough within 30 seconds or so the float was being dragged towards the thick cover. This time I gave it a tad more time and I struck in to a half decent fish. I could see it was a Perch and nice one at that. 

An oz bigger than a recent capture, at 1lb 13oz, it was a lean fish that felt hollow, still plenty of belly to fill it will definitely go to be well over 2 in a few weeks I would say. A quick post this but with the Wife away on a girly weekend I've some whippersnappers to entertain.

Warwickshire Avon - Ham Bush !!!! and a PB.

They are out of garlic spam at Tesco's so I stumbled on what looked like a Polish alternative, Gulasz by Pamapol. Spam has always been good to me and for this inaugural session down the Warwickshire Avon I'd fish a big chunk on both rods. Earlier in the week I'd met up with Jeff Hatt and his partner in crime Martin Roberts for a pint and Martin kindly offered to show me a map of angling club I'll probably join in the new season, it looked ideal and a whole new area for me to fish and the detailed shared we me should put me in good stead to catch some decent fish when I do eventually get my book. Anyway during the evenings pleasantries and fishing chitchat Martin told me about an area that I could fish under one of my current memberships that I'd not even considered...

Maybe I was missing a trick...?

I had intend to try and target some chubby dace in an area that has produced some good ones in the past but decided to fish these pastures new. When I arrived at the location there were only really two swims the first looked unfishable at it was thick with mud and I WOULD have ended up in the drink so the swim available to me was the only option. It was a wide long stretch and maybe heavy trotting would have been the better option but I could always fish it with another method if need be.

When I took the meat out the tin I realised it wasn't as robust as Spam, in-fact it was very soft indeed, I had to be careful with the cast. It was extremely fatty too, not as garlicky as the proper stuff either. It looked great on the hair though, ideal. With both rods out I sat back and waited. For the first couple of hours there must have been a huge shoal of gudgeon because not only were there plenty of tip indications but every so often one of the greedy blighters would impale themselves on the hook.

When a jack pike took one on the retrieve I thought about moving downstream but I decide to stick it out for the whole session.I'm glad I did too because some tell tale Chub pulls eventually I stuck in to a decent fish. It felt decent too and a spirited fight and a wrestle through some thick cabbages, I had it in the net. I use a Gardner Spoon landing net and I could see by its length that it would be a potential PB beater. (The centrepins spool measures 5") Now readers of my Blog know that I'm yet to catch a 5lb Chub so I was eager to get it on the scales.

PB Warwickshire Avon Chub - 4lb 13oz

Bugger, not quite, 4lb 13oz and a PB...still not a magic five but encouraging signs especially when the Chub was fairly hollow and would go well over five I imagine when it's got it's head down feeding in the winter months. The monkeys not really to get off my back, just yet.

I had an hour left so both rods went out again, big chunks of meat on both rods. Half hour went by without any indications on the rod tips, the Gudgeon suspicious in their absence when all of a sudden the right hand violently hooped over and the centrepins ratchet was screaming....

This was no Chub...

It powered off downstream and my finger drag on the spool was tested to the limit, I eventually turned the fish and felt much more in control of it after another couple of powerful lunges and a last gasp run when it saw the net I had a nice Barbel on the bank. It looked a double but on the scales it went 9lb 8oz, it made a nice change from photographing a Barbel in the dark, a lovely looking proud fish in mint condition.

A 9lb 8oz Warwickshire Avon Barbel

The rest of the session was uneventful and as soon as I got back home a few more tins of Pamapol meat went on the shopping list, it certainly did the trick today.