Warwickshire Stour - Haymakers and Hebdomadally

I roped Sam in for this short misty morning session down at the Warwickshire Stour. You see Sam negotiated a 'fiver' (down from 10 quid) if he found the Salter brass balance scales I lost the morning before.

They must have fallen out my bag somehow but 4 eyes are better than 2 for covering ground and to be honest, its nice having the partner in crime with me, even though being 3 degrees unless we kept on the move we'd have to cut the session short.

To be honest I was 50/50 for this session having watched the fight last night where Joseph Parker gained a more comprehensive victory over Derek Chisora to close the chapter on their rivalry after an action-packed heavyweight rematch in Manchester.

Now Parker won their first meeting on a disputed split points decision in May but the former WBO champion left little room for doubt this time around, with Chisora taking a count in the fourth round. Chisora was put down by vicious uppercuts in each of the seventh and eighth rounds but rallied in the closing stages to hear the final bell.

There was only one outcome really and this was Chisora's 12th defeat in 44 fights, hmm time to hand up his gloves me thinks, but a few rum and cokes and a glass or two of wine I went to sleep as easy as Parker landed the punches.

With the Wife going for an early  night the fight was far better than I expected it to be, but it was clear from around the 4th or 5th round who was going to be the victor. This is heavyweight boxing though, just one decent punch connected from Chisora could well have turned the tide for the ageing brawler. 

But then a little like the chub when they are up for a fight, Chisora gives it his all in the ring and despite the haymakers and wayward uppercuts I'm sure he must love a good tussle, so will he retire now ? who knows.

Anyway a little like Derek,  Chevin love a tussle too and thats one of the reason why I prefer to use balanced tackle for them, no broom handles to be seen here.

I use a TFG 11ft 1.2oz River and Stream rod with a 2 ounce glass quiver tip and the blank really is superb and can bend almost double through to the handle to help with the lunged to cover chub like to do.

An unmistakable fight isn't it from a chub and they are so unlike any other fish when they get hooked and they go in pursuit of the snags, tree roots and undercut banks.

To me there is no point putting a flyweight in with a heavyweight in the ring, where is the fun in that.

Now I approach smaller rivers like the Stour in winter usually the same way.

Noise can be an issue so no point dropping a feeder in its close quarters because the often cautious chub know something is wrong and can often stay clear of the bait.

I find a better way is to travel as light as possible with a link ledger set-up and feed likely looking chub holding swims with small balls of mashed bread, and then with as little noise as possible drop in the bread flake after leaving the swim to rest for a while.

You will know if there is a fish holding up there pretty quick to be honest, I'm talking seconds rather than minutes. Classic chub holding swims such as rafts such as the one Sam is fishing provides cover over the Chevins head and more often that not Mr Loggerhead will be in residence.

And sure enough a soon as the breadflake fluttered down the water column a couple of taps and then a proper pull round a decent chub was on.

Sam was doing a decent job in the fight although I did have to give some assistance during its second surge as is was trying to get under our feet which was full of snags and debris. It was soon in the net though and what a lovely chub it was. 

To be honest bites were harder to come by then they were 24 hours earlier but the temperature had dropped considerably overnight and I'm sure the fish were feeling it.

We were here to try and find the scales though so to keep warm after baiting a couple of swims we'd  retrace my steps yesterday to try and stumble upon the scales. Sadly I think they might be gone for good because they didn't turn up and I narrowed down an area I'm 90% sure they would be in.

Sam was adamant he was bringing his float rod as we'd some fresh maggots but it was clear that bread was the king like it can be for clearing winter river.

I'm sure if we persevered in one swim we could well get the fish to feed but when its cold and Sam often has to wear gloves throughout the cold session I knew it would be a short term attempt. 

The raft swim produced the bigger fish as shown here, a short but fat fish around 4lb that felt like a block of ice. They must be feeding nicely in this section of river as the 10 caught in the two sessions were all in decent nick.

With an hour left to go I wanted to fish another couple of swims but Sam had other ideas because despite wrapping up well once he starts to feel the cold, that's the only thing on his mind.

On my mind has always been the extraction and dredging this small stretch had seen 15 months ago but at least there are still fish to be caught and some nice ones too.

I'm sure if it's left alone to do its own thing again, it could well get back to looking natural again. I forgot how much I like the Stour so with me finishing work Tuesday and the weather looking good for fishing I might give the other sections I can fish a go because I fancy a decent roach, and I'm not sure this stretch is the one where a specimen redfin will slip up. 

Warwickshire Stour - Strapontins and Strephosymbolia

Over a year ago now I discovered a stretch of the river dredged by the farmer, apparently after consulting with the angling club where the odd match takes place. A once picturesque stretch of the Warwickshire Stour changed beyond recognition, the environmental damage caused was quite staggering really, a river beyond repair ? 

Now I know that the EA were on the case petty sharpish however till this day I don't know how it ended, because it seems, as expected there was no authorisation for the works, and for some reason after trying to find out more information there was radio silence after some initial encouraging dialogue. 

There are a few houses that look out on to this stretch and I'm still amazed how these so called 'works' went unnoticed for such a long time, as the farmer must have been toing and froing with his overly large digger bucket for a couple weeks before the EA were notified. 

If only they were as keen to act as they currently as they were over another proposed eyesore, you see outraged residents have formed a campaign group to oppose the building of a large solar farm on picturesque countryside south of Stratford.

A planning application has been submitted to Stratford District Council to establish a 147-acre solar farm on agricultural land between Ilmington, Crimscote and Wimpstone.

In its proposal, Regener8 Power Limited says it wants to build a 48MWp solar farm and battery storage facility which it says will generate renewable electricity to meet the needs of 15,670 homes every year. It reckons on an annual saving of 25,900 tonnes of CO2 by displacing use of fossil fuels.

However, residents are adamant that the solar farm would blight the countryside and not necessarily bring the green dividends promised. To be fair I can see their point as I know of another field full of solar panels nearby and yeap, they ain't exactly nice to look at are they.

Anyway I was back, for a nose and to try and winkle out a chub !!!!

You see postie Bob fished a match here recently and his 3 chub went almost 12lbs on the scales, which to be honest for a small river, is excellent really. 

Those fish came quite quickly in to the 5 hour match and for the rest of it trotting maggots brought, well not a fat lot. 

I was out with the head turners though, yeap rather large pieces of bread flake because the river had dropped nicely and a quick gander when I went over Wimpstone bridge, a little like the Avon, the colour was dropping out of it. 

I've caught some nice plump roach here in the past too so the hook was reduced in size from my usual size 4 to a size 10, but having fished the Alne and caught dace on rigs meant for Chub, I wasn't that concerned to be honest, even an 8 ounce roach wouldn't think twice about tackling a large piece of flake, let alone a non swinger. 

So anyway, how did it go ?

Well to be honest much better than expected you see I caught 3 reasonable chub from the first swim which is the second picture down from the top, each one released downstream and with the flow to contend with on light tackle decent sport.

It's a roving river this and over the 3.5 hours session I actually caught 6 proper chub and 2 chublets. The biggest getting towards the 4lb mark, which ain't bad for a small river. If you didn't know how characterful this river was you'd probably not know any different if you walk its banks as a year later it certainly looks better than it did. 

All the debris has been removed thankfully but it still is an eyesore and baron in places and I doubt even in the summer it will look any different. I had to squint in  couple of the swims as I remembered what it once looked like. 

Any enjoyable session mind you, well I say that as I seem to have lost the 4lb salter scales as pictured. They must have fell out of my pocket probably negotiating the electric fence many a time. 

I did try and retrace my steps but no, sadly nowhere to be seen, I late losing stuff and these scales were quite hard to track down, they appear from Ebay time to time so I'll keep an eye out. No roach for this session, but then swim after swim had all the reeds removed, that certainly won't help now will it.

Warwickshire Avon - Tegestology and Teetotalism

Well with Christmas just round the corner ones winter coat seems to be donned a little earlier this yeah. An office party, a night out with her indoors, an early Christmas Dinner round the Sister-in-Laws, those pieces of cake I'd normally refuse, those chocolates I'd wave away, or the extra couple of beers I'd save till another day have all gone out the window. 

The roast dinners, well, they've just been getting bigger and bigger, a Terry's chocolate orange, done in one sitting. But then come January ones alcohol intake will be reduced to that of Adolf Hitler, where abstinence for a month keeps my cogs turning and the reduction in calories my belt looser. 

Anyway to the fishing, a couple of weeks ago I caught a chub off the top with floating bread which to be honest I wondered why I hadn't tried sooner as it's one of my favourite ways to catch them in the summer, don't neglect the tried and tested technique in winter was the outcome of that session, and I'd always be reminded of it.

Winter mind you, I thought these cold-blooded poikilothermous vertebrates meaning they get their body temperature from the surrounding water. 

Therefore, as body temperature is directly linked to water temperature, and changes in body temperature have an effect on how the body works, these can be stressful or deadly.

You see at higher water temperatures water holds less dissolved oxygen, so when water warms it affects fish respiration and they have to move their gills more rapidly to extract the oxygen they need.

Temperature also affects metabolism and metabolic processes occur quicker in warmer water. 

This also adds to the amount of oxygen fish require and hence why especially fish like the Barbel that give it their all in the fight, they can take sometime to recover. In the winter though they can largely switch off the feed until they really have to,. 

But not all fishes are not equally thermally adapted, and many cannot tolerate very cold or very warm temperatures. 

Thermal tolerance is an important controller of fish distributions, but within their range, fishes have adapted several ways to deal with cold temperatures, chub though, what makes them so different to other coarse fish we catch ?

I've caught Chub in water a nadger over 2 degrees when we had a tough winter, maybe they are just greediest of all the fish I target ?

Anyway Chub, like all fish, are predictable in their behaviour. As the season draws to a close they congregate in large shoals in steadier water. 

Places to look for them are smooth glides where the water is travelling at walking pace or slightly less. Water depth and the presence, or lack of, cover seem to matter less than the pace of the flow so don’t neglect apparently featureless stretches of water.

Which is where I caught the chub from a couple of weeks ago. An open bit of water with pieces of bread over their heads got them competing for the Warburton's. This session though I had a little more time so I'd retrace my steps to the swim I caught the fish from and then explore the other similar swims to see if their was method in ones madness.

 

The water was clearing fast and with it being overcast and also with a tinge of colour in the water for this session many ticks in the boxes were given for a chub to give itself up for my netting pleasure. 

I've said previously I've struggled to get in amongst the bigger Warwickshire Avon fish of late, would this session be any different ? 

I started off at the bottom of the stretch and fed some pieces of bread to drift downstream but after a good fifteen minutes or so it was clear despite the clearing water that the chub were either not there, or not up for a feed off the top.

Now this swim always contains chub so a change of tact, I decided to make some mashed bread from a couple of slices as upstream there is a nice swim with a decent slack so I went for a wander and decided to pre-bait a swim and would fish it last just before dusk to try and winkle out one of the bigger fish.

I went for a wander and allowed the bread to drift down a few swims and only one had a chub rise to take it. It looked a decent fish too considering the wake it made, but a good half an hour without a rise I was thinking about a move but then out of the blue a fish took it. 

As soon as I felt the fish through the rod I knew it was a splasher but once netted what a stunning little fish it was, a right minter albeit about 3 times smaller than the fish I was after.

It was clear despite that fish taking it off the top that they were not moving around as they were a couple of weeks ago so it was back to the bottom bait.

A large chunk of breadflake dropped in to some tasty looking swims where chub could be holding up. About 4 swims down with only nibbles from small fish I had one pre-baited swim to give a go in to dusk to try and get in and amongst the big lumps that I know reside here. 

Within 20 seconds of the breadflake bouncing around the bottom a couple of tentative pulls on the 2oz glass tip a proper bite developed. The fish confident in taking the bait properly because of the lack of resistance. This fish felt a little better after the first run as it was activating the drag, but I knew straight away it wasn't a big Chevin. 

The problem in these confined swims is that once you've caught one fish, you rarely catch another, and that was the case here. I fed more bread and fished well after I couldn't see the tip and had to touch ledger but sadly no more bites. Disappointing if I'm honest because the river looked perfect the bigger chub done a vanishing act. To the Stour forthwith, there must be some decent chub there to be caught, well postie Bob says there is, and he is a man in the know.