Warwickshire Avon – Cheese Flingers and Polish Mingers

At eight minutes past eight the 8th of August villagers from Halford near Shipston-Upon-Stour descend on the bridge over the River Stour to throw cheese down to a legendary rat.

The giant Rat of Halford, I’m sure you’ve heard of it….

The Saxon village which lies on the Fosse Way, is said to have suffered terribly from rats attacking its crops around harvest time. Local folklore has it that the beast lurks in the river and Viking warlord called King Hal who in 888 AD founded the village but sadly his reign was brought to an abrupt end when he was killed by the giant rat which had mutated in the river and had grown so big because it lived off dairy products cast in the river during the making of cheese.

In order to try and stop the destruction, it's said villagers decided to offer the rats alternative foods to quell their hunger. So they began to throw cheese to appease the vermin and stop them from coming out to eat the crops.

Whether this worked or not is unclear but in recent years the villagers have resurrected the tradition, held annually at the same time and date in honour of the year the legend first began. Each year more and more people come along to the cheese throwing ceremony and people from as far away as the US travel to Halford to proceed across the bridge by torchlight and throw their cheesy offerings to the rat.

Those who throw their dairy products to the rat don't just satisfy his mythical hunger. The throwers are also said to be blessed with eternal life...well, eternal until the next year's ceremony anyway!

I’m all for British traditions I really am, especially if it has the potential to upset those not likeminded, but hey, if you don’t like it time to get thick-skinned.

Now talking about thick skinned this Polish Morliny Garlic Sausage I buy from Tesco is a bit of a ugly monstrosity in looks and contents it’s not something you’d serve up for a Sunday dinner but scan through the ingredients listed below quickly, and fast forward to the end.

Pork (57%), Water, Pork Fat, Pork Rind, Potato Flour, Salt, Soya Protein, Stabilisers: E451, E452, E261, E326, E508, Pork Collagen Protein, Sugar, Flavour Enhancer: E621, Antioxidant: E316, Garlic Powder (0.5%), Gelling Agent: E407, Glucose, Thickener: E425, Vegetable Extracts, Spice Extracts, Hydrolysed Maize Protein, Flavouring, Smoke Flavouring, Dried Yeast, Yeast Extract, Preservative: E250, Filled into an inedible casing.

Yes apart from containing some fish attracting ingredients such as garlic powder, spice, pork and salt it’s encased in a skin that needs to be removed before eating. I’ve used it successfully before as the skin acts like an anchor for the stop when attached to a hair, so you haven’t that thought in your mind about whether the bait is still on or not. Even a good going over by a chub the bait remains attached.

For this session however and a blank the day before I'd prep these meat baits ready for the following weekend where the conditions look for favourable for a Barbel….

Glug, freeze, glug, freeze and repeat, it really locks in the flavour.

Having been a little bored sat behind motionless roads, this session was to try and snare a decent Chub, the water temperature would have dropped and the clarity improved.

So it was lobworms and cheese paste for this session.....

When I got to to the river after de-icing the car I thought, "Oh Yes !!!" because it had that blue tinge about it, which down here usually means the Chub will be feeding and I'd be in for a good morning.

After the first swim,then the second, the third, the fourth without a bite I was reevaluating that comment, they were clearly not having it.

The river really did look perfect for a fish or two.

The banker swim the 5th to try, is just that, and I cannot remember ever not catching a Chub here in winter if the conditions are right like they seemed to be for this session and sure enough after about 10 minutes after the big lump of cheesepaste was in position, a couple of taps on the quiver then it whoops right over.

I'm in to a decent Chub, it's slack in the inside but the fish has quickly got out in to the main flow which is a fork in the river where the rivers combine and I'm hanging on for dear life with the rod bent double.

I eventually feel in control of it now but then it's got a second wind to try and escape and had managed to get under a raft which is being harbored by a couple of overhanging trees. Then all goes solid, yeap, this hard fighting Chevin has managed to get to the sanctuary of some snags.

I let it go slack, nothing doing, apply as much pressure as I'd like, again nothing doing, then again some slide strain applied, it's out, well the rig that is, the hooks pulled.

Damn !!!!

Some more paste out, no more bites, it's on to the sixth and final swim, again, no bites came.

A really tough session to be honest and it's really a mystery where the Chub have gone, not just here but many areas I fish their presence is lacking, all very odd. I've never seen any cormorants in this locality until this season, so I wonder if that's got anything to do with it. Remember the Chub I caught with large fresh chunk out his flanks ? Otters or Cormorants who knows but one thing is for sure, there must me something go on, because the fish are suspicious in their absence.

In this 6th year of fishing this small stretch for Chub I've never known it so hard going....

Warwickshire Avon – Pingers and Pauciloquents

Christmas and New Year came and went pretty quick as did 2017 overall I suppose then  again I did squeeze in 4 holidays, but looking back it was one of the most enjoyable Christmas spent with family and friends for a long while. There were a few absentees from the revelry however, the H3N2 flu strain knocked my folks for six and others that would usually share the foir rib and stuffed turkey were in sunnier climes."

The beef didn't go to waste though as there was plenty left over meat for the beef, red onion and horseradish sandwiches.

Simple pleasures, shame the fishing over the break was poor to mediocre....

The eldest was more in to opening presents this year which in the past he couldn’t give two hoots, but then Ben is Ben after all, the way his brain works is a week by week learning process. The ‘wizz kid’ award he received for using technology from his school, closed the year off nicely though. Still a big challenge with all his communication and other issues but family life isn’t meant to be easy is it, if it was I’d quickly get bored to be honest and just having the house to myself sometimes confirms that.

So anyway a couple of days before New Year’s Eve we hosted a get together for close friends where I ended up with more alcohol than I started with, now that won’t help ones resolve as a partaker in dry January but I'm hoping my willpower will holdup, come February though it will be appreciated that’s for sure. The party, well, the curry night is well proven now, the kids occupy themselves and each invitee makes a pot of curry and brings a bottle for everyone to dip in to.

I provide a mountain of popodums, homemade raita’s, salads, chutneys and naan breads for all to tuck in, and even the kids are up for it with a chicken korma , chips and chicken nuggets.

It’s a great format, good food, good company, plenty of drink, give it a go….

Curry’s for this do, well I did a chicken dhansak and beef massaman , Stewy a rich lamb saag, Sandra a chicken bhuna, Vanessa a rather spicy balti, Lorraine a rather nice fragrant chickpea jobbie and Brenda, well she brought the errrr…..contents of her rather large booze cupboard.

Then I’m thinking, hang on a minute there is a pattern here, out of all the curries made it was the mostly the ladies that donned the apron strings and chopped the onions, maybe I’m in the minority as I do most of the cooking in our household, well I enjoy it to be honest, and let’s be frank, as the Wife doesn’t read the blog, I’m probably the better cook and enjoy reading food blogs not just fishing related, bloggers such as locally based reviewer Meat and one Veg who eats out as much as I’d like to.

Hmmm complimentary food and taxi’s just by reviewing food, if I ever hang my rods up, as a food lover I fancy a bash at that…

I found 3 new saucepans under the tree you see from big Santa, and very well received I might add, as were the other presents I was recipient to. These days I’d rather have things I’d use and / or enjoy. I don’t think there was anything that had to be shoved to the back of a cupboard never to be seen again unlike the extending feather duster the Wife unwrapped from the tearaways.

So please excuse the cobwebs if you come round mine…

So the bigger of the three pans first outing, fillets of sea bass with that lovely crispy skin that you get when you fry them in butter, cooked and left to rest. Then whack in the same pan, some fresh ginger and red chilli but this time with a little oil, get them sizzling for a few minutes and add them as a topping to the fish. Garnish with some fat spring onions, a drizzle of lemon and a nadger of soy sauce. Oh and some skinny oven chips as a side, yes, sacrilege I know, but don’t let that get in the way of a tasty meal.

For the microwave pingers and oven clock watchers, whilst I was waiting to colour, from fridge to plate in less than fifteen minutes,

Give it a bash, it ain't hard, the cooking that is....

Now Barbel have a similar palate to mine especially in these winter coloured and cold water conditions where they can be enticed in to feeding if a bait is flavoured with garlic and spice as the flavours waft downstream.

It gets their barbules twitching and they actively seek the pungent offering out. So many times I fished the river where I’m thinking why would they like to feed in these conditions they just do, they just don’t seem to have a problem with it at all, almost revel in it sometimes.

So for this session, tactics I don’t usually employ, but needs must as one of my knees was giving me jip (old age) so I was sat behind two rods for damage limitation. One rod spicy meat the other a rather large glugged complex T-boilie with an additional paste wrap.I even had a chair for this session, and to counter the restless legs to keep me nailed to the chair a Zaftra Morgen mix and noticeable eardrum warmer.

So enough of the guff and preamble, did I catch anything?

Well errrr no...

A chap upstream from me managed a nice chub and small barbel really quick on lobworm and had blanked the day before using curried meat but my rods were motionless, bar one bite on the meat rod right at the end of the session, nothing much doing.

Not sure why either, temperatures were low but still high enough for barbel to feed in theory, the colour looked ideal and I was in a section with a steady flow. I moved once, but that didn't aid the session, so I blanked. It's usually quite a productive area for me as well.

Oh well best laid plans and all that, the knee feels a little better and it bored me to death sat behind two rods for three hours, so with the weather looking a little better for Barbel next weekend I might prep some of my favourite meat baits ready to do battle.

Then again don't want it that easy....

It's a hard frost overnight again so it might be Chub in the morning, this time I'll take a few of my remaining lobworms.

Warwickshire Avon - Disembogue and Discombobulated

For the first session of 2018 it was back down to familiar waters to try and winkle something out in testing conditions. I'd never seen the river so high here and looking at the boarding fields it had been over it's banks. The local rivers have been very much out of sorts over the Christmas period confused and disorganised springs to mind.The river was on the drop though so the fish having being used to the environment for a while should be up for feeding.

Well if you can find them that is, because most swims were boiling away like a pot of Christmas sprouts. Find the slacks though where the fish can find a little respite drop a bait on their head you might well be lucky. You see at this time of year, particularly the Chub they will bulging at the seams like Kelly Brook after her Christmas pudding.

Here particularly when it's very cold but the river less coloured and more normal levels you can often have multiple captures of Chub, one memorable session all the ones I caught were over 4 lb but then you can see why they like it here, because the Chevin loves a good snag.

Simple roving tactics are the way here, how I like to fish these days, as light as I can manage. Small bag, net, rod and rod rest and that's it. Baits for the morning session well pungent cheese paste and also lobworms. Lobs you see, especially when the water is turbid can out fish many other modern baits because if you think about it when the river is nearly bursting it's banks it means much more of them will be washed in to the river, so it's a bait the fish will be confident feeding on.

Best laid plans and all that though because despite finding a few fishable swims no bites came.All very odd really as the conditions looked ideal. As soon as the cold rain started I decided to call the session to a close and trench back to the car in my heavy winter wellies.

Plans for the this year, well I need a few more species to try and catch for the bloggers challenge, so river eel, carp, tench and the elusive silver bream are targets up to the close season at the middle of March. A winter Barbel and then I might re-look at the club books I have, bin off the ones I don't use as much and maybe add a more intimate water again as I do enjoy fishing small rivers and streams despite the fish likely being smaller in statue.

Oh and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to the quest for a canal double figure Zander again where I'm stuck on 9lb.