Warwickshire Avon - Knack Shops and Knob Twiddlers

Blending a psychedelic sensory overload with riotous club bangers the Chemical Brothers certainly transported me away from all what's been going on of late.

If you've read these ramblings of mine for a while you'd know repetitive beats and especially when combined with acid visuals that trigger altered thoughts, feelings, and awareness of one's surroundings, culminating in perceptual anomalies transporting me back to those rave days.

Ok to the layman they are a couple of knob-twiddlers on stage giving the woofers a good working out whilst projecting some computer graphics, lasers and lights to fill the venue, but they know what they are doing I tell thee, hence the audience made up of many kids born in the 70's like me.

It never leaves you if you embraced all things EDM in the 80's and 90's and even now I'm getting on a bit, with my knees hurting occasionally and I'm finding myself asleep on the sofa post Sunday roast, I'll probably still be doing this in 20 years time.

They were the tonic that I needed to end quite a turbulent week, an extraordinary multi-sensorial experience in contrast to sitting on a river bank. The thing is there are similarities believe it or not, the mind in a good place for a start, thoughts banished for a few hours in good company and with the like minded.

Now things are gradually getting back to normal luckily, as I felt I may need to reach out for the unmentionables, but then life can be tough, you just have to do what you need to do, and try and do those things that boost your own serotonin and good mood levels. I'm lucky in that respect, as I know which buttons to press and levers to pull to get me functioning properly again.

Shame I cannot say the same for the local rivers, as they reached flood levels again during the week, where yet again it was very wet one indeed. There is light at the end of the tunnel though as the weather for the weekend is cold but dry and I'm hoping that will continue.The best season to be fishing has largely been a washout.

When I have managed to get to the river and it has been fishable results have been ok to be fair, the fish for a good while now having to tuck themselves up out of harm's way, and now able to venture out to try and quell their hunger pangs and fill their stomachs.

For this early session I quite fancied sitting it out and enjoying the cold fresh air.

I decided on a swim I remembered that is always fishable when the river is high. It is sheltered away from the main flow a so debris catching the line would be less of a problem and fish could seek sanctuary if they really wanted to.

A session of double dipping then this, a Peperami Fire Stick offering to try and temp a Barbel or Chub with some smelly groundbait in the feeder, and then on the sleeper rod a roach deadbait to try and tempt a Zander.

The deadbait would be more or less under the rod tip, as there some decent depth close in and a firm bottom !!!

I even had the gas burner with me, streaky bacon, a couple of Lashfords, a fried egg and a few squirts of HP's finest. Feel good food of the Gods !!!!

I'd not caught Zander from this area but I knew others had and it looked the ideal area for a decent size predator to layup waiting for a tasty morsel to venture in to its path.

My registered score on the bloggers challenge is easily beatable, and I want to try and keep the momentum going on the rivers scoreboard and try and catch species that would likely bite in these conditions, Zander being one of them.

So anyway, enough of the waffling, how did it go ?

Well it was a cold foggy start and crisp underfoot, but the fresh clean air was welcome as I hardly had an opportunity to top up the levels in the week just gone. The river as expected well up but a nice clarity for a bite I thought.

After an hour without a bite the stove was lit, the bacon smell unmistakable, washed down with a cup of tea, I was on the only angler brave enough to tackle the conditions for this morning it seems. Another hour went by without much more than a couple of taps so as the sun rose behind the trees I decided to move swims and fish the last half of the session upstream.

All very confusing, I thought at least I'd have a chub or two. Within a few minutes after settling in the new swim with a bait dropped in the margin the bobbin jumped in to life. I lifted the rod and felt the resistance straight away and I lifted in to the fish.

I thought it was a Zander at first, but nope, a jack that wolfed down a small roach.

And that was the lot, a couple of pulls on the Peperami which for the last hour was wrapped in stinky Ramiz Paste, maybe those still tucked up in bed knew something I didn't.

Warwickshire Avon - Quagmires and Quarromes

With the temperature still mild the tangleator fancied a trip out whilst he could still feel his fingers. When it's freezing or just above he doesn't cope with the cold very well and despite wearing all his winter gear his extremities start to go blue. 

The river was up a good foot or maybe more from the morning before not a million of miles away and the colour had changed to something more turbid.

Feed maggots though, here there are bait fish in numbers, it can take a while for the fish to turn up but when they do it's a bite a chuck. Not the biggest of fish admittedly, but to keep Sam from getting bored bites are what is needed.

Here the swim is quite wide and throughout the short session the water went from almost static to a decent pace on it so more casting was required more than I'd especially as there was snags close in to get caught up in.

Oddly throughout the session the only fish we caught were bleak, there are usually dace and roach here in shoals as well but not today. Baitfish attracts the attention of predators and whilst Sam was sat on the comfortable chair I was sat on the bucket waiting for the sleeper rods to jump in to life.

Two rods both with  a roach flapper, one close in, one further out where there is a nice clear bottom. I'd caught Pike here before so knew they were around, sometimes it's nice sitting back and relaxing whilst someone else does the fishing.

The first dropped take came quite quick and on inspection of the bait it looked like a Zander had to hold of it, the tell-tale stab marks only that species can give. Oddly me and others that fish here haven't had a Zed either, so that to me was encouraging, even though I didn't see the fish.

With the swim fast becoming a quagmire and the mud acting like a wick up Sam's wellies and up his trousers the left hand rod that was fished closed in jumps in to life.

It was taking line quite quickly so I didn't hesitate and leant in to the fish, I don't think it realised it was hooked at first till it surfaced and then saw me most probably. It bolted off on a couple of powerful runs and tail-walked at one point as it existed the water and I had to steer it away from the platform.

With Sam doing the landing duties the fish was in the net, "Feels like a good fish Daddy, what's your biggest again ?"

"Not far off this I reckon"

I knew it was a double but the scales went round past 11 and stopped at 11lb 8oz. Quite a hollow fish so if it gets its head down feeding over winter it will easily better my mediocre PB, which is only 2 ounces more.

The water clarity didn't scream Pike so just goes to show, put a bait in the right place or attract baitfish in the swim, bites can be forthcoming when odds are stacked against you.

Warwickshire Avon - Bomb Holes and Botherams

Bob my postie who come rain come shine, delivers all manner of fishing related items through my postbox that cannot be obtained from ones local tackle-shop. Back in the day he used to be a match fisherman on the circuit in and around the local area. I've had some good leads over the years and despite not wetting a line in anger for a while, those 'secret' areas we all know and love but don't share often come good.

A feature on a river for example there 20 years ago is likely to be there now as well, and us anglers know full well, that any feature no matter how insignificant it appears to the novice can make the difference in whether the string will be pulled, the maggot sucked, the bread engulfed.

A chance conversation recently over a stretch of river I fish now and he did back then....

"So you must have fished the bomb hole !!!!? "

"Errr the what ?, the bomb hole"

"yeah, the bomb hole swim, there was Chub in there so big if you drew the peg you'd be heading back to the car to dust off the proper gear, 7lbers !!!" "It's a big hole much deeper than the main river, you know the ****, well if you go up from there, its....(you get the picture)"

"Cheers Bob, I'll let you know how I get on !!!! "

"Big hooks and bread flake the size of Tunnocks Tea Cakes, that's how we used to catch them"

From his description I knew exactly where it was an how I would try to find it. So it was out with the deeper, something I'd not used for a while to try and locate the bomb hole and the Chub of humungus proportions and even bigger appetites.

Now for those that haven't seen let alone used the deeper, via an app on your phone, the castable sonar shows you depth, contours, features and fish. Inbuilt GPS you can recover your scans via an online portal that shows them on a map.

Out of the 32,000 German air raids on the United Kingdom between September 1939 and March 1945 I don't think many ended up in this neck of the woods. Apparently Hitler said that he would never bomb Stratford-Upon-Avon because of the centrality of the Shakespeare to Germany's national culture.

Whatever the truth about Hitler's rumoured attitude towards all things Bard is that the town remained surprisingly unscathed by enemy action. The town is after all, not far away from cities that suffered some of the most severe bombings of the early years of the war. My Grandad always went on about the bombings in Small Heath where they lived and the fact they "flattened his local chippy, the one that did a free handful of scraps !!!"

Ok, most likely an 'actual' bomb hole, but who cares, it apparently could be mistaken for me. So back on track a short session this and one rod only, bread on the hook and cheesepaste for back-up, could I find the big rubber lips utopia ?

Anyway enough of the preamble, how did it go....

The river had been well over its banks and very sticky underfoot the mud getting worse as I made my way to where Bob told me. To be fair the swim sort of revealed itself, down from the crease of the river where it was 4 or 5 foot there was a big swirling mass of water much slower than the rest of the river.

Now bare in mind that the river here doesn't really vary that much, 4 foot being the average depth the second pass of the deeper the bomb hole revealed itself

16 Ft!!!!

The change in depth was ridiculous, the depth varied between 14 and 16ft in an area not much bigger than a mini tennis court. There were bait fish showing as well so this could well be hiding a decent predator or two something I might try in the future.

The hook baited, rod rest in place, a simple cast without needing to look behind me, rod high. Ten minutes went by, over at the far bank the resident otter surfacing from amongst all the bubbles it had created. Then the first pull on the tip, then another, then a confident pull round. A fish was on.

I don't think it realised it was hook at first because as soon as it came to the surface it went on a powerful run. This was a decent Chub, the rod bent double. There are no real snags here for it to get near though so after a while I think it knew the game was up. I've caught longer fish but when I lifted the landing net this felt big. A very dense fish built like a wombat, and I wasn't wrong....

....it was a PB !!!!

A 5lb 6oz Warwickshire Avon Chub

I love it went a plan comes together, and a decent bottle of Red for Bob for Christmas. That was the only fish of the morning, but considering the feedback from others fishing the local rivers finding it tough, I went home very happy indeed being bowled over by the 'bomb hole'.