Warwickshire Avon - Misanthropy and Microseismographs

Blog Post 1750 👀😂

So I might as well go fishing to one of my favorite areas of the Warwickshire Avon and try and catch a decent Chub. I've not caught a 5lber in a good while, and here some reside. Well they have over the years anyway. !! So simple tactics, some liquidised bread and bread on the hook. 

Now no matter how far away from human habitation the often misanthrope angler sits, that dreaded fear kicks in when that speck on the horizon gets bigger and bigger. 

The sinister old boy with the long raincoat, silk scarf and shuffling walk, must be dealt with immediately and firmly. Poor old lad, his basic problem is loneliness and lack of love. But you are there to fish, not to play psychiatrist to every old kink who comes your way.

The danger with this old lad is that once he starts talking he is almost impossible to shut up. In the absence of any courting couples, he will stand behind you for a time, coughing politely to attract your attention.

After ten minutes or so of unheeded coughs, sniffs and shuffles, he will sigh and say, 'Ah, patience is a wonderful thing.' Answered or not, he will continue: 'I've always fancied fishing myself, very relaxing, I believe. And my doctor is always telling me to take it up. But I don't have the patience, not really. I was telling my doctor only the other day.

Unchecked, he will wander through a detailed list of his symptoms and arrive, through some curious process of DOM logic, at the Problems of Young People Today. 

He will be seriously concerned about teenage sex, horrified at the spread of VD, aghast at see-through blouses and mini-skirts, appalled at the permissiveness in the cinema, on the stage and in the bookshops. Oh, horror. Oh, woe. And he'll enjoy every minute of it.

The only thing to do is to stop him before he gets into his stride. Ignoring him is useless. So is arguing, or pleading to be left in peace and quiet. So you say, with an occasional sniff and twitch:

'Yer, patience. That's wot the headshrinker said I needed. Fer me nerves, like. When I came out after me last stretch fer GBH, he told me ter take up fishin'. Stop me smashin' geezers up fer nuffin', like. I wouldn't care, but the last bloke I duffed over only needed 27 stitches. Nah, the bloke before that-he really was in a mess, I've got to admit it....'

By this time you should be talking to yourself, with the long raincoat doing a quick shuffle into the middle distance. 

Anyway to the fishing, as per the norm I didn't really have much time to winkle out a chub or two because after finishing work I also had a curfew to get back. Dusk is the best time really to catch a chub in these conditions so I was surprised when a bite came pretty quick in the second swim where the bread must have got the attraction of a greedy Chevin.

It went round the swim like a heat seeking missile but it was soon in the net as it wasn't that big. Still a fish is fish and I didn't think I'd catch one so quickly. 

Only a small one for this stretch, still I wasn't complaining. I wasn't complaining about the weather either it was nice and mild, so the winter clobber wasn't needed. Anyway with that fish released I went on the rove to try and catch another one. As I was moving from swim to swim, a video call from Nic from Avon Angling came out of the blue, and he after trotting maggots on the Avon for some nice chub, he'd hooked what seemed like the bottom then it started moving !!! 😆

He'd managed to hook and land a lovely Warwickshire Avon barbel which he showed me, and was around 6 or 7 lb or so, the milder weather definitely helping I'd imagine. Now I've not had a Warwickshire Avon barbel for ages, but Barbara the Barbel surely needs another go before the season end, so fingers crossed the stars align, because my fishing results of late, have been rather mediocre I must admit. 

When the light started to go I caught another chub of similar size to the first one, then another literally at curfew time which was probably the smallest of the lot. Nothing big showed for me during this session however at least I managed to get a few bites.

The water temperature is going to rise that's for sure, so hopefully I'll manage a few sessions when a barbel is more likely to turn up !! we will see, it would be nice to end the season on a high wouldn't it. The conditions haven't exactly been favourable over the last numbers of weeks so fingers crossed the higher water temperatures will bring some more bites. 

Warwickshire Stour - Cacophonous and Cacaesthesia

Fishing midweek on a school day !!, well it is half term after all where I decided to take a rare day off from work. With some ten pin bowling later on and a curry afterwards I had a morning to go and do some fishing down at the lovely Warwickshire Stour.

Fishing can be very hit and miss on this river but it offers the angler that small river fix that many like me require from time to time. 

The chub don't go big, a 4lber is a good'un but it is the nice roach that from time show up with 1lb 9oz the biggest I've managed to muster up so far. I lost one recently that was much bigger than that and would it have made the magic 2lb ? well I'd never know but quite possibly, it was certainly the biggest roach I'd ever seen.

I arrived at dawn on a rather cold morning with the water temperature a nadger over 4 degrees and got fishing. Simple tactics of a small feeder filled with some groundbait and liquidised bread and a thumbnail piece of bread on the hook. 

Like many small rivers the depth can vary considerable where just in this swim it goes from 6 ft to shallow, to 12 foot over a small distance. The 3/4 oz quiver amplifies those roach bites and they are so distinctive and quite easy to tell the difference from a chub bite. 

I was only fishing for ten minutes when a chub bite came out of nowhere and when I struck the fish had powered downstream right in to a snag within what seemed like a split seconds. A fish that knew its home that's for sure. Damn it !!! 

Bites were forthcoming on nearly every cast and in the deepest swim after some telltale sharp roach pulls a fish was on and the bite matched the quarry. A nice roach of around 12 ounces succumbed to the small piece of bread. 

I'm sure if I had used maggots I'd catch more fish because small fish I'm sure were messing around with the bread unable to get the bait in their mouths. A good hour in the first swim the bites dried up and I got on the move. 

There is a good reason why I prefer other sections of the Stour and that is because despite the public footpath slap bang in the middle of the two fields, dog walkers ignore that complete and hug the river bank the best that can. I don't really want a dog sniffing around me and its owner shouting it back at the top of his voice, and I don't really want a dog chasing its ball feet from me, but both of those happened in this short mornings session. 💩

Then the chainsawing started, as did the planes which seemed one after the other, not exactly a peaceful morning in solitude I must admit. 👀

As the time ticked by the bites became hard to by but I did managed another similar sized roach and a chublet as I headed down the stretch. Even Nic from Avon Angling banker swim didn't produce so a very tough morning really, the fish just were not up for a feed really most likely having a short feeding window and I wasn't there to capitalise on that.

Still I could get used to this fishing when I should be working, despite the fishing being mediocre and the background noise being I know would I would rather be doing !!

Warwickshire Avon - Holts and Hulks

Another day in the office, another half a dollar in the coffers I fancied trying for a chub on the way home. An overnight hard frost and the river was still pretty high I still reckoned the chub would be biting and luckily I know a few slacks on this stretch.

The river after being a nice tinge of green had coloured up a little more after the rain so it was out with the cheesepaste. I concocted a new batch recently and this an albino shrek colour was also made a little softer which I'm sure helps with hook-ups. 

With the river cold any cheesepaste that contains fat will obviously harden in texture so you need to make sure it's not too hard to begin with. This batch was 2 parts Danish blue, 1 part grated mature cheddar, some shortcrust pastry mix and some Dynamite Baits, garlic and cheese liquid attractant. There is no recipe for this as you often have to judge the quantities when you are making it.

The last chub I caught on this bait nearly took the rod in the bite was so violent. 

A good fifteen minutes in a swim primed with some liquidised bread I was getting ready to move to the next swim, and them Whammm !!! the elevated quivertip jumped in to life and continued on going. 

I love watching a float go under but Wow !!! this really was something else.

I don't fish that far out using cheesepaste if I mould it directly over the hook, I more often than not fish near snags and an underarm cast is all that is required. If I want to cast it any distance I use some of my 3D printed paste cages. I prefer to mount directly on a big hook mind you.  

Anyway back to the fishing, there is a curfew on this stretch but enough time to try and winkle out a chub. Well an hour and a half, which isn't much in the scheme of things, but when the river is cold, very cold and a river that is boiling and swirly those slacker areas are where the fish are likely to be sitting. 

Still it was a rather nice day with clear skies and some sun for once so it was quite pleasant being sat by the river waiting for a fish to appear. I had a particular swim in mind to fish where last time in the deep trough I managed to catch two chub in quick succession after only being there for 15 minutes or so.

That swim was unfishable really, properly banging through where I bet I didn't even have any leads in my armoury that would sufficiently hold bottom.Thankfully on a bend (Sean's Favorite Peg) there is a couple of slacks that could be fished.

Both with a satisfying donk of the small bomb It was fingers and toes crossed something would turn up to bite despite the very winterty looking river. A good twenty minutes in the first swim I moved upstream and went to fish another slack where ones peace was interrupted !!

Now Shrek is an anti-social ogre who loves the solitude of his swamp and enjoys fending off mobs and intruders. One day, his life is interrupted after the dwarfish Lord Farquaad of Duloc exiles a vast number of fairy tale creatures, who inadvertently end up in the swamp, for me this was another resident Otter, where I assume there must be a few on this stretch, as I saw two together at the lower end of the stretch recently. 

I've certainly seen more this season than I ever have done, even though they have been there since I had this book many many moons ago. I had a few years break from this stretch because ones barbel returns were very few and far between, however more recently seems to be the odd one coming out in matches, and also many are lost to the inadequate tackle of the 1.5lb hook link users, so they are still about.

This Otter hadn't a care in the world though and after appearing over at the far bank it swam straight in to the drink and proceeded to meander downstream fully aware I was there. Anyway dusk was just round the corner where to cut a long story short, unsurprisingly I blanked. Not a chublet pull or anything despite the bait being presented nicely. 

Oh well I tried, I could do no more than that !!, I've a morning off tomorrow, I fancy trying for a Roach down the Warwickshire Stour to try and avenge losing that PB beater !! . The weather is getting milder too, I might try and see if I can get closer to Barbara the barbel 👀😀