Warwickshire Avon - Killzones and Kickshaws

The weather really has been glorious of late, spring has definitely sprung and I can already feel my mood changing for the better. The fishing though of late to be honest hasn't been particularly productive, ok I've caught a few nice fish but I seem to be struggling for bites for some reason, so for this morning session I fancied fishing for anything that comes.

So it was out with the bronze maggots to try and catch some chub. There was a match on here yesterday so I did wonder if the fishing would be tough, but I need not worry to be honest.

I arrived at an empty car park to a bright sun just on the rise and decided to fish a swim where the river is pretty shallow but it also seems to hold fish. I'm no trotting expert but I'm more than confident now to run the float through, mend line and obviously feed regularly.

The were dead reeds right out in front of me and to the side, so not ideal to be able to land the fish but thankfully there was a little gap that was just wide enough as otherwise it might have posed a problem.

Anyway a bite first cast after 15 minutes of feeding little and often without running the float down, I really did not expect that. !! It was a nice chub of around 2lb with the 15ft Diawa rod doing its thing perfectly, having to tease it away from any other fish in the swim in a slow and confident pull upstream in pretty pacey water.

Then another fish soon after, wow, I'm enjoying this. Over the next hour and a half I caught around 10 chub with the smallest around 1lb and the best maybe a 3lber. Not massive but it was exactly how I wanted it to play out, and all from one area of the swim. 

Now Nic had put me on to these, Guru size 20 Super MWG hooks which incidentally held strong when he landed a barbel trotting maggots on the Avon recently, and I must admit, the hook hold on all the chub I caught were all excellent, they were certainly not coming off that's for sure.

Once the sun came from behind the houses though and was illuminating the swim the bites dried off completely, and another hour and a half trotting without even a bite in the killzone I decided to knock it on the head and go and enjoy the sun instead.

I was just in my long sleeve t-shirt at the end of the session and that was at 10.00am and apparently it's going to reach 17 degrees or so. A really enjoyable morning and I really need to do more trotting to be honest as I really enjoy it when I do and there is nothing more satisfying seeing a float bury under the surface and you lift the rod in to a solid fish.

Sadly no barbel showed it was a chub chub chub, but nothing wrong with that when they put up a good account for themselves. On to the next one !!

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.23

Well it looks like Barbara was finally revealed to the world, you see Sean caught a 13lb 10oz barbel from a swim up from where I saw the fish. 

All that effort I put in, it just goes to show, the right time the right place and when the stars align, you can catch a fantastic fin perfect fish like this one was. A superb fish and congratulations to Sean, WHAT A FISH !! 🆒

Could there be bigger swimming around here ? quite possibly but it was great to finally see a decent barbel caught on the stretch, what an awesome looking fish too. 

Now high-protein baits may be sure-fire fish attractors, but they don't come cheap. And they get dearer by the season. It's not so much the hook baits that cost the money (for the number of bites I get, two or three flash-fried hi-protein black-pudding balls will last all day). No, it's the groundbait. A few handful of that and the old après-pêche social fund (i.e. beer money) is looking a bit sick.

I've always been heavy on groundbait because of my general lack of accuracy (I'm no Jon Arthur). I tend to depend on the splatter effect, being a bit short-sighted, uncoordinated and not over-endowed with means of propulsion such as muscles. But I can't go on just throwing bait out and hoping for the best. I'm practising accuracy and investigating the means of getting just the right amount in exactly the right places.

An old angling book I've got suggests swimming out with the groundbait. That must have been written when Britain was a tropical swamp; these days it's a bit chilly round the Trossachs.

There's the old-fashioned angler's throwing stick, of course, either thick bamboo with the top joint sliced vertically in half, or an ordinary stick with a dessert spoon tied to the top. I find the bamboo type OK for distance, but a bit lacking in accuracy. With the other, I find that after a few throws the spoon tends to come off and follow the bait. The wife is getting a bit fed up of eating custard with a fork.

I did think of catapults, especially after I discovered one with a pistol grip, arm support, wrist guard and other aids to accuracy and distance. But I had one or two reservations, apart from the fact that I did myself a mischief just pulling the elastic to full stretch. A catapult is too much of a temptation when there are intrusions in your swim, such as swans, ducks, power boats, cormorants and definitely not the otters. 

'What did you get today, dear ?'

'Oh, a couple of roach, two ducks, a swan, a feller with a commodore's cap and a snotty-nosed little tyke who was fishing too close.' At one point I thought I'd really found the answer: a giant pea-shooter. You can get them in plastic, about three feet long and with a half-inch bore. Saw a bloke using one. He filled it with small balls of bait, rolled in flour to reduce friction, and blew them a hell of a distance.

It looked highly impressive and completely foolproof. Until his mate came along, just as the lad was about to blow, grabbed .hold of the other end and blew first. With mates like mine, I daren't risk it. There's something about flour-coated minced worm-and-catfood balls that puts you off your ale. Even if they are flash-fried.

Finally I thought of a kite, with a little platform underneath that could be tilted when it was over the target. But for that you need a smooth lift-off if you're not going to be covered in protein and have tweety-birds pecking at you the rest of the day. And you need the wind blowing steadily in the right direction.

It could be embarrassing, after a sudden crosswise gust, to have a police person striding down the bank towards you. Blowing black-pudding balls out of his walkie-talkie.

"Ello, 'ello, 'ello. Having a nice play are we? And what little toys have we here, then?'

'Nothing officer. Ha ha. Just a kite, a throwing stick, a catapult and a pea-shooter."

Anyway back to the fishing  it was out with the catapult and some pellet pinging because the other day I had a few bites and caught a couple of nice chub one going 5lb 8 ounces and around 60cm's long doing exactly that. 

I'm sure it's the noise of the dinner bell where now with the water a tad warmer (it was 8.5 degrees when I measured it yesterday). 

Fish a small bait and with some freebies to get the fish grubbing about, bait and wait basically, and whilst I did that I'd wait for a pike bite. Which to be honest happened half an hour on getting there. A weird bite though, from nothing, to one bob then it went straight under and then when I lifted up the rod whatever it was had already made off at one heck of a pace and over 3 metres to my left.

The fish dropped the bait with one hell of a disturbance on the water, bugger !!!  I had another chance half an hour after that bite which was a normal pike bite. The fish was messing with the bait for a while then the float went off towards the middle of the river where after a few seconds of feeling the weight of the fish it dropped off. This didn't feel that big though so I wasn't really too bothered about that.

And that was as exciting as it got a few more hours fishing and nothing to show for it. I even fished the swim where Sean caught the fish for the last hour but no one was home. Still what a lovely morning though, and lots of wildlife about. It's not all about catching fish now is it. 

Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.22

Back in 2021 I had I had a suspicious looking lesion in the middle of my left cheek checked out because it had changed colour and also was starting to grow. After a referral from an online GP via video call I was off to see a dermatologist at the Nuffield in Leamington where thankfully it was nothing to worry about. It was a seborrheic keratosis which is a common non cancerous skin growth, however as us anglers spend lots of time outdoors you cannot be too careful. 

Anything suspicious get it checked out !!

So this week I had it removed by laser by Eve Clinic in Leamington because it was definitely getting bigger and more pronounced. The procedure after the initial anaesthetic went it was rather painless with only the smell of a pig on a spit when the audible laser was doing its thing was all I had to worry about. It's a bit scabby but that will sort itself out. Ok I will most likely be left with a small scar, but it looks better already to be honest, less of a quasimodo. 

The following day I was out for the evening with a mate Phippo, a fellow automotive design engineer who has taken early retirement (jammy git) and we've been frequenting various indian restaurants and pubs every few weeks for many a year now. Like me a lover of beer and the lover of spice. 

Cinnamon Arch which are now operating out of the Duck on the Pond in Long Itchington is still our favourite from when we first discovered them in the Joseph Arch pub in Barford, where they were fondly known by us as 'The Joey'. 

We'd not eaten here before which was Lavang in Solihull so we had been looking forward to this for a while as they do have a good reputation. 

Anyway before the curry we'd had a couple of Ale's in the Pup and Duckling a few doors down and also to buy some of the imperial stouts of their well stocked shelves from where we entered the vibrant and busy restaurant which is so nice to see. 

It's a small space so the tables are rather close together but to be honest that didn't overly bother me and the service was excellent, like a military operation, where every member of staff knew the task in hand. 

Many other hospitality businesses like this are finding it tough to just to make a living because that spare cash for the punter is harder to find these days with the cost of living spiralling, not helped with the various tax and business related rises to come in April. 

Most cut their cloth to suit and meals out are a luxury these days even though it's good for the soul, which for us it was out with the mango lassi palate cleanser before we ordered our food for the evening and we got onto eating the warm poppadoms and the various dips, when out of the blue my phone 'pinged' literally as my nihari lamb chops starter turned up (tasty but I'd have liked them spicier) and the waiter put down a dish of dry ice, yes really !! . The dry ice was all very dramatic at first but fizzled out like my fishing has been this year. 👀. All very Insta !! (no I haven't got an account !!).

Anyway the ping to disturb putting the world to rights was a WhatsApp message on the syndicate group from George who was fishing at the Untrodden had caught his biggest ever chub EVER, not just from the Warwickshire Avon where he managed a 5lber recently after years of trying.  This latest one went 5lb and 15 ounces and had beaten his long time PB off the Hampshire Avon which went 5lb and 12 ounces. 

A cracking fish and I no doubt will think George will get that six pounder next with the way his chub captures have been going recently, as he is definitely on a bit of a purple patch and in-fact he actually caught another PB from the River Leam after 13 years of trying, however I'll leave that for him to tell you on his blog 🤞 . The season is running out though and I've still not had a barbel for ages, even though we know there are some on this stretch to be caught. 

I have decided to get myself down to the Wye though before the season end because the weather looks fair for a few more days before the temperature drops again as we head in to next week. Sooooo little time and so much to do. I also fancy trying for a pike here before the drawbridge comes down, and George fishing meat, managed a 7lb pike on the same session. 😀 

I'm going to make changes in the new season to explore more waters and cast my net wider however this stretch will no doubt still factor in, because well, it's like our own little utopia away from prying eyes, and there just happens to be some nice fish caught to boot. It helps that I'm the closest as well, and more often than not, I've got it all to myself. 

Anyway for this session I decided to give some pimped up spam I've had on the go for a while.  Astaxanthin powder, phall curry powder and some garlic oil to hopefully tickle a barbel's tastebuds, which has been in and out of the freezer more times than Buffalo Si's deadbaits to that the flavours infuse ☺. 

Whatever happened to garlic spam anyway ? despite me and others writing to Hormel Foods Corporation they are yet to appear on the shelves again. I'm sure their share price would jump if they only took heed of the cry of help from me and other maggotdrowners. 

My standard pellet  / paste wrapped boilie approach doesn't seem to be working of late, well for the Barbel anyway, because all I seem to be catching is chub, chub and more chub. 

I've huge confidence in fishing with meat, in-fact most of the doubles I've caught and also my PB have come to the spam (other brands available)

I like catching chub as they are probably my favorite species because I catch them using various methods and they do seem to feed all year round from the hottest of days, to the coldest of winters. 

Anyway as per the norm here of late, a short session after work where I'd arrive before dusk and fish an hour in to dark which would be around 7.30pm. 

Two rods for this one, meat on one rod and boilie and paste wrap on the other with some pellets pinged in initially to get any fish in the area grubbing about. I decided to venture up to the area where I spotted a big'un and set one's stall out. It's a swim of features and if I'm going to meet something to put a decent bend in the barbel rod, it's a creature of habit I was hoping for. 

Anyway enough waffle better get fishing !!!

Well the river had that grey colour like these floor tiles and I knew I would be lucky to get a bite, and Nic was out trotting maggots on the Avon in a couple of decent swims earlier with not much to show for it. I've fished it enough to know it is likely to be bust rather than boom and after getting the rods out heading in to dusk without even a chub pull in to dark would likely be no better.

Sure enough dusk came and went and I gave it a good go well in to dark but nothing materialised whatsoever. The fish were definitely putting their fins up and to be honest what I should be doing, so with the wind picking up I decided to head home and get one with the fishes with this rather nice stout.