Warwickshire Avon - Gluepots and Greenheads

Rods made up a quick cobbled together session. Bait some Lone Angler pellets I'd found hidden at the back of the bait fridge. They were very brittle indeed, a drill through the middle no chance, these needed to be superglued and Gorilla Gel more than up for the task. File flat one of the pellets and a small blob of glue on the end. Then add the tag end and hold and sandwich the other pellet in place for forty five seconds or so.

Leave for a few minutes and it will resist the most determined of Chub. But to be fair for this session a chub would do. So I reduced the hair so the pellets sat close to the hook, usually you see I use a decent length hair when targeting Barbel specifically, however with only an hour in to dusk needs must and all that.

The river was up from the last trip, but not only that is was on the rise as well. The swim I'd caught Barbel before and its deeper than the norm in this section and it also has a nice crease where the flow is hindered by an overhanging tree and where the river widens.It was threaten showers all day and sods law it started to rain when I was there. Some ominous dark clouds putting the river in to gloom. Only the sunset helping lift the mood of the evening.

At least it was warm and after a few pulls of the rod tip not long after putting the bait out at least there is some fish around.

What was encouraging for a future session was that I watching the Perch plundering the fry that littered the surface. Dusk came round quick and as soon as the bats came out the right-hand rod was getting interest.

Sure enough as I preparing to make a hasty exit because the clouds were gathering and heading my way a decent bite came. A confident pull turned in to a proper bite. I knew it was Chub without even feeling the fish through the carbon.

One of the smallest I've caught in a long while as well. No Barbel, again, but then others are struggling on this stretch, it's not just me. I'm not a mad Barbel angler though, maybe I need to up my game a little. As I type this the rain has been nonstop all day. I expect the rivers will be continuing to go up, and up.

Small Brook Fishing Pt.10 – Trugs and Twiddle Poops

The stream has been a little out of sorts of late where bullheads are concerned anyway. These aggressive little fish nowhere to be seen over the last few sessions where particularly the last session trout seemed to dominate. In the winter fish maggot you usually catch one or two at least every trip or at least have a few drop off when swinging it in.

The theory I had was unless you're prepared to fish in to dusk and beyond which is difficult to justify, they were no biting because it was too clear. The are well camouflaged when hugging bottom and much of the time they are laying up under their stone blanket. Yesterday there was a decent amount of rain though so I decided to give it another go to try and register some challenge points.

100 points for the biggest of the species, will others dedicate as much time as I have been doing for them I wonder ?

The water was up as expected, a nice clarity and it looked ideal for a bite from the 'Millers Thumb' It took a while for the first bite though and it came to Sam who was fishing a swim with a little bit of depth.

A nice dark roach of 8oz's and gave a pretty good scrap on light tackle. Certainly the biggest Roach he'd caught and just goes to show some the quality of these fish that live in these small waterways.

In many areas you can go from one side to the other just by rolling your socks up, very shallow indeed but these small tributaries are feature filled and it's just a matter of roving around to try and find fish holding areas.

After a couple of small Perch and one that probably went half a pound I caught a tiny brownie. By far the smallest I've caught here but encouraging all the same. The bullheads were nowhere to be seen though. Hmmmmmmm !!!

Were persevered and continued on in our quest. There was misty rain falling down as well and the wind was picking up. Considering a few days earlier it was 37 degrees, this felt like an autumn day. The tiny weir oddly didn't produce any fish, usually there are dace there and trout.

Now I've seen bullheads move from the bottom and properly go after maggots in the past and the final swim I'd dropped the float rod in for Sam to commandeer and out the corner of my eye caught the sight of a bullhead do exactly as described above. It came out of nowhere and tried to grab the slowly sinking bait. Fast as well, they don't mess around.

"Sam, bullheads, I've found bullheads !!!!"

And they register bites on a 1oz quiver and also bob the tiny float fitted to Sam's rod. Sure enough after a few casts the first bullhead was caught. Not a big fish, but well deserved and around half the size of the fish that we have caught here. Where Sam's biggest is a 1/4 of the British record, I'd love to see a big Bullhead I really would.

But another species ticked off the list. Now I think I'll return again in the winter for those dace or maybe even sooner, we'll see, Sam and I love this sort of fishing. Simple tactics and simple fishing. The stamp of fish surprise me here though. I love the adventure, the exploring and discovering more of this small waterway. I'm sure there are other surprises to be had, I also want to try and catch a stoneloach on rod and line. Apparently there are here, and I want to catch one.

Warwickshire Avon - Culiciforms and Cumberworlds

A hot day indeed, 37 Degrees in-fact which to be honest, is far too hot for me. Early to mid twenties is fine, I'm happy with that. I remember a trip to Australia where the wife and I drove from Melbourne to Sydney over a couple of days. Melbourne a huge urban sprawl I was glad to get out of it to be honest, on the coast road up to Sydney was more my thing, Tilba Tilba, Eden, and Philip Island amongst others, beaches, and national parks, me and the wife, a couple of kangaroos and wombats and that was it.

But then when we got to Sydney to meet up with some friends who'd move out there, the first day it was un-seasonally hot weather, so much so a visit to Manly Beach was like a where's Wally poster. I have never seen so many people crammed on to one beach. It was horrendous, literally the whole entire population of the small city, and again urban sprawl must have decided, yeap, hey here's an idea, why don't we go to the beach !!!!

So for this short session, I knew most would have their feet dangling in the kids paddling pool, or sat in the beer garden, so why not go and have a look if you can spot some carp. Now my Warwickshire Avon carp PB stands at 20lb caught in March a few years ago now but I don't target them specifically, maybe I should, because there are quite a few milling around if you spend as much time as me on the river.

Pedestrian pace, lily pads, some depth, yeap, there will likely be carp there. With the sun still up I wanted to try and see if they were sunning themselves like the mad Aussies. One reliable stretch the lilies are ridiculously thick. There are carp in and amongst them though and usually a trickle of floaters down eventually brings them out on the surface. If they are there that is.

Morning seems the best time to be fair, they are easier to see under the surface at this time of day as well. After an hour though with nothing showing I decided to move to an entirely different stretch altogether.

There is carp here as well but oddly I'd not seen any myself. I'd heard from people who had caught them and also was bankside when a friend banked one, so they are here, but to be honest I rarely fish for carp so that's not really an issue.

After a good hour or so, wondering if I should have stayed at home, I spotted my first carp. Not a huge fish, maybe not even a double, but it was a carp, and that was my target to try and add some species points to the blogger challenge tally.

I watched it for a while and then is disappeared below the surface. I needed to act quick, a chunk from my new favorite bread, a piece of extra thick Hovis.

It staying on the hook rather well and also for big pieces I use for Chub, ideal. Very doughy indeed. So all prepared, the first chuck out of the bread, a fish comes up almost instantly and takes it off the surface. I nailed the fish straight away, it wasn't messing around when it took it. But then after the initial fight, I was questioning if the fish I was playing was the carp I saw. It certainly wasn't fighting like a double figure carp.

Yeap, a Chub, Arhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!

Not a bad one mind you, 4lb 12oz on the scales, but not the target species. After the fish was returned there was nothing doing at all. A tickle of floating bread remained unhindered and the carp had disappeared.  A bend in the rod though, so at least not a blank and a year ago a 4lb 12oz would have been a PB. The river was a little lifeless if I'm honest, lets hope we get some much needed rain, otherwise Chub will likely feature till that happens.

A pleasant evening on the whole, I watched a kingfisher feeding and bankside with the volume of water felt less oppressive.  The mosquitos a different matter, bitten and bitten again.