Warwickshire Avon - Kid-Gloves and Kidology

What a waste of time that was, Sam you see expressed an interest to go fishing with me in the morning, well until the time was to go that is and he changed his mind. No persuading from me helped the cause either so in the end I went back to bed and had a rather nice lie-in.

Since I've come back from Spain though I've been off the sauce and I always sleep better where over the last few days I've had three nights of near 8 hours of sleep 🙌

Those sort of sleep is very unusual for me where 6-7 hours is the norm. I feel much better for it mind you so maybe I'll keep the abstinence going for a least till next weekend anyway.

With the gear packed though and weather about to turn as the hours passed I decided to get some peace and head down to the river anyway and do what I had intended to do with the tangleator.

That was to visit the aquarium sorry 'gonk' swim to try and winkle out a gudgeon or two. The problem was I could see the fish in the super clear water and the maggot munchers were queuing up to get hold of the hunger quellers.

So before I got the hang of catching the gudgeon on the float I had to wade through small dace, roach and tiny chub. Obviously a minnow or two and a 1lb perch that evaded the hook as I was trying to land it. The key was to fish the float well overdepth and also move one of the shot an inch from the hook.

Then they started queuing up and I retained a few in the landing net. A pike was hanging around with the gudgeon swimming around in the bottom of the net. I knew if I wasn't in plain sight in the gin clear water it would have attacked the net no problem. No the biggest of gudgeon but plenty of sport. 

Now after my quote of gudgeon I decided to head up stream and try and catch a chub off the top where some were showing the last time I was here. A couple didn't take long to show either, the problem was the more convenient swim to catch them they spook off faster than my mate Hilly when it's his round. 

So I had to drift some bread down from a swim around 20 years downstream. Not a problem usually but with the river really low those reeds were proud of the river. Anyway yes you guessed it I managed to hook a decent chub get it out from the thick cover to the left and get it out in to the main flow.

The problem despite me giving it as much side strain as I dared it swim straight in to the reeds and ended up getting stuck solid. It did me over good and proper with the end result was a couple of reeds pulled straight out of the river and me kicking the ground in frustration. The fish was long gone sadly and these sort of rivers, the shoal if there was one had long gone. I do love gudgeon though, plenty of character that need to be handled with kid-gloves in these conditions. 

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.80 (Canal Zander)

As I mentioned in the previous post my fishing mojo isn't quite there at the moment so I've not really had the urge to spend a lot of time fishing. The gin clear rivers are not helping and fingers crossed with the sunbathing weather a distant memory (most likely) and some rain on the way hopefully fishing will improve.

I'm slap bang in canal Zander country where I live so for this short evening session in to dusk I'll try and winkle out a canal Zander.

Now with an 11lb 8 ounce canal Zander concluding my 6 year quest a couple of years ago I could do with another challenge especially when the quest to catch a Stone Loach on rod and line was concluded in the 2nd session.

I'll have a think on that one, a 3lb river perch might be a nice quest, or something on those lines but in the meantime various sessions will keep me interested. Fishing for canal Zander isn't rocket science and fishing small deadbaits has been mainly the method I use since I started fishing for them.

What I didn't expect for this session was the first chuck of the deadbait opposite this boat that before I could get the bait on the next rod within seconds of the bait settling the float was indicating a confident run 🤯 !!!

It moved a good couple of meters before I noticed however when I tightened up to the circle hook I didn't connect in to it. Damn It !!! anyway another missed run on the same rod ten minutes later that usually indicates tiny schoolie zander not quite big enough to get the bait in their mouths.

Persistence is the key because where there are Zander in the swim there is usually bigger ones. I was correct in that assumption because the next bite, this time on the left hand rod I tightened up to a solid weight this time. It took me all over the swim but the 3lber was soon in the landing net. I thought I was on to something but 2 more missed bites there was more small'uns than big'uns milling around.

I tried a few swims in the end without anymore fish and oddly when dusk came and having to illuminate the floats with a focussing torch it went dead. Not unusual for these turbid canals because the Zander are happy enough going on the hunt during the day. A nice Zed to conclude the session though, I love Zander, and I'm luckily I can target them 5 mins from home.

Warwickshire Avon - MOT's and Monopsychisms

I'm not quite feeling the urge to get that fishing fix at the moment, not sure why, I suppose the post holiday blues and now back bashing the CAD machine where I'm not back in to the three days a week in the office routine.

Dusk is upon us quicker than ever and is only going to get dark and darker as the days tick by. That may well be to my advantage however because some of the syndicate waters I fish are a slight detour when I leave the office and travel back home. I prefer short sessions these days 2-5 hours is enough for me, ok when I go to the Wye it's all day but those days are few and far between.

The Jimny was 4 years old this week and 30,000 in to ownership it still has character in abundance. It sailed through the MOT and was treated to a full service as a reward. Bit mad it's worth more than I bought it for and provides a nice little asset 

Anyway for this short 2 hour session I headed down to the convenient section of the Warwickshire Avon to try and catch a chub. I drifted some bread down first and it was clear when I saw them in one swim coming up to inspect the bread and then bugger off it was going to be tough.  

In one swim there was an almighty boil on the surface where a chub had come up to take the bread off the surface, and then the same again albeit half the size and then there was so sign of them again. I tried slow sinking bread for something different but they were not having it at all.

The waters is gin clear at the moment and the fish are as cautious as anything in these conditions so often the key is to wait for dusk when their confidence comes back and they come out for a mooch. I did manage a couple of chublets with some link ledgered bread in one the deeper swims. 

20 minutes before dusk I settled in to one swim and started to feed golf ball sized pieces of bread mash and cast out when the bats started on their insect assault.  

Bites can quick on the 1ounce tip but I suspect they were small fish trying their best on a huge piece of bread, Eventually a proper pull round where after a couple of pulls the whole tip bent round a good foot or so. I missed that bite but I cast out again and sure enough a quick bite I was in to a fish that was pulling back. Not a big fish I knew that straight away but at least it was giving a decent account for itself.

A scraper 3lb'er maybe but certainly not worth getting the scales out. With the fish now retained in the landing net I thought another one might be on the cards but oddly it was eerily quiet. In the end in the boredom I moved to the swim that the big chub surfaced where I could just about see in the low light levels. 

After a pathetic first cast the second was even worse where I cast straight in to a tree !! I could have re-rigged and stayed but in the end I decided to end the session early slightly disappointed. At least I didn't blank but not quite the stamp I'm after. On to the next one !!!