Warwickshire Avon – Wazzocks and Wagpasties

With the flag of Scotland in a prominent position on the back of this knackered old white van, the particulates belching out the back of this jalopy was boarding on the dangerous, engine clearly on its last legs.

So recirc on, damage limitation….

Luckily an overtaking opportunity is a hundred years away because the roads goes from one to two lanes as the gradient is quite considerable.

Now his offside mirror, well that’s knackered too, no glass, mechanism on show, so got to tread carefully, so in to sports mode, indicator on, throttle fully pressed, anything to reduce the time exposed to danger.

I’m alongside now, yeap, you guessed it, the wazzock also decides to pull out to overtake a car too and is headed my way, horn pressed, brakes hard on, I’ve not choice but to tuck back behind.

His window wound down, middle finger raised, the van struggling to pick up speed, black smoke a car stopper, like something out of Whacky Racers.

I can only assume he was a white cider drinker peed off with the recent Scottish parliament changes with the van laden with countless cases of three-litre bottles such was his dawdlement.

Every minute counted for this session you see because I left work a little earlier to set-up prior to dusk, to set the station out for a couple of hours.

You see I was back at an area of the Warwickshire Avon that I can fish in to dark, it’s an option that is few and far between on the area I fish, and to be honest I don’t make the most of it.

I visited it a month ago and managed a near 4lb Chub and the same tactics were to be employed for this session albeit a couple of swims down in a large flat swim. So two rods dead, lamprey and roach, one rod a big smelly glugged boilie plus a pva bag of tiny elips pellets and broken matching boilies.

Despite this being an area utterly dominated by Pike, The rogue fish, the Zander I’m sure are here, they must be, I’ve had them above and below, so no reason why they are not. The thinking was maybe here there are some lurkers to be had as smaller ones are never caught and the bigger ones don’t reveal themselves that easily.

It’s quite shallow here you see and unless it’s a weir, I rarely do any good when it’s shallow on running water, ok canals are in its makeup shallow but the water is turbid in the main, at the moment, you could be looking in a to a bottle of Tanqueray.

Air temperatures mild, an influx of warm in to the cold, I was hoping the fish were feeding.

The sky was clear to it was a nice pleasant evening to be out, rods were set for 4.40pm, half a roach to the left by a overhang, the lamprey over to the far left of the swim, the boilie straight ahead.

Dusk past then Chub appeared in the swim, a tentative pull on the boilie, a pluck on the lamprey, then the lamprey rod properly goes off and a fish is taking line, sadly I struck in to thin air.

Weird isn't it after the first hour after dusk as past, bites dry up and that's exactly what happened, time to call it a day, tail between legs.

Warwickshire Avon – Mavericks and Microorganisms

I had planned to fish with Sam for some Chub but he woke up Saturday morning having overnight had been properly been hit by a virus. His temperature over 40 degrees that wasn’t coming down with Calpol, heart rate racing. He was knocked for six.

The Wife had a chat with 111, next minute he is in Warwick hospital for 5 hours. Eventually they were happy with him to go home, so back late straight to bed.

So I didn’t know what to do Sunday morning with the partner in crime out of action so with some decent Perch turning up a one of my clubs waters it was lure in hand to try and find one or two.

Now the river is low, very low, clear, very clear so I didn’t expect much, a small tiny Jack was about the only action and that dropped off the hook, but you know what, sometimes it’s just nice to be out when everyone else is tucked up in bed.

Sam after 12 hours kip, was back to normal, so all well for next weekend hopefully, the search for big Chub must continue.

Warwickshire Avon - Psychosoma's and Philistines

I’ve never been able to properly absorb myself in a book, not sure why, maybe I just haven’t got one of those brains. To be honest, I find it a pain in the backside because the Wife is the total opposite and sometimes she is that captivated and engrossed she just cannot put the book down.

I really can see the appeal….

You see as a must needed solitude seeker, it could we be another addition to my armoury. As I’ve said many time before, with rod in hand my mind ends up elsewhere,

as my thoughts switch to fish not to today….

Music rather than print is very very different for me, in-fact sometimes especially some of ambient stuff I listen to, I’m that in to it, I sort of have an out-of-body experience, basically I’m that away from it sometimes it’s acting like a sleep substitute .

However, a case can be made for “no music”, where silence would be your best companion. Music is a physical stimulus after all, so listening to it means a constant input from one of your physical senses. For most, music could help in the initial relaxation, it can also be a constant pull bringing your attention to the physical dimension and as a consequence making your astral body or psychosoma take off harder.

Energies are the mechanism to evoke and interact with extraphysical entities. So the music will tend to create a matching extraphysical energy environment. This process is usually unconscious, but it can affect the quality of your out-of-body experience. I don’t have that problem, hence probably why I’ve been a lover, producer and DJ of electronic music ever since I discovered it nudges my neurons.

Decent cosseting and comfortable wireless and noise cancelling headphones are the key (I use Plantronics BackBeat Pro’s), you really do need the right hardware as it can lead to success or failure.

Give it a bash, I’ve never looked back….

Now talking of solitude seeking, here the river appears asleep, so feeble is the current, species here many, sanctuary in abundance. For the fisherman it’s a case of double dipping, so for this dawn short session it was meat on one rod, dead or worm on the other,

Sit back and wait as it’s a guess what will turn up and that’s what keeps me coming back….

I couldn't believe how bad the river looked mind you, ridiculously low and a little bb float could have happily sat there holding station, it was static. Loads of leaves sat on the surface too, hmmm, not good.

After an hour and a bit of motionless everything bar a tiny perch I decided to upticks and venture to an area with a little more oxygen and it was a move worth making. With a few minutes of deadbait out a fish picked it up and was taking line.

Felt a reasonable fish too and after a couple of abated runs it was in the net.

A nice Zander of 7lb 6oz and a few more points to the tally.

A proper nice dark fish with a pretty big head, it's certainly got a lot of growing to do.

Another hour, without even a nibble and with the rain coming down I called it a day.