Warwickshire Avon - Swadish & Swingometers

Right then. Fishing. Remember that?

It’s taken a bit of a back seat of late, truth be told. Not because I’ve lost interest oh no, far from it but because the Warwickshire Avon resembles more of a mid-range mineral water these days than a river. Low, gin clear, and quieter than a vegan at a hog roast. Not exactly barbel-friendly is it? Those crafty old lumps don’t get to twenty pounds by being reckless in daylight.

Still, if the river won’t provide therapy, then there’s always techno. (well not quite)

So off I went to Glasgow last weekend, where the beats were deep, the bass was heavier than the 2 12" Cerwin Vega's complete with huge amplifier in the Metro GTI when I was 21. The venue was intimate enough to see the DJ's ear hairs vibrate with each drop. Selador Records, Dave Parry and Dave Seaman at the Radisson Red’s Skyline Bar, with Rodriguez Jr providing a live set essentially a rave in a greenhouse, suspended several storeys up, with a soundsystem capable of rearranging your pancreas.

Nine hours of 50hz-fuelled ecstasy (the frequency, not the pill this is Glasgow, not Gatecrasher 1999) and by Sunday morning, my tinnitus usually dormant unless I accidentally touch the oven with wet hands had returned like a long-lost mate offering to crash on the sofa for a few nights.

"Mick are you not too old for this?" I hear you ask. (Sam says it all the time)

Well, when I’m nodding along in sync with the sub-bass while ordering a pint of beer and Googling “Can earplugs still be cool?”, I think the answer is maybe. But I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much. And food well, the calories were flowing freer than the Avon is right now. The culinary highlight came courtesy of Swadish by Ajay Kumar, a tasting menu so exquisite I briefly considered taking up food blogging and hanging up the rods. 

Lamb pepper roast, black spices, coconut, Rumali roti, and preserved lemon like a balti that got a first-class degree. If you ever wondered what finesse tastes like, it’s that dish. It was one of those meals where as a foodie you can’t help but take a picture before tucking in, despite looking like a berk in front of strangers.

Anyway, back to reality. (Via the superb Bon Accord Whisky bar !!)

Midway through digesting both the lamb and my Glasgow hangover, an email popped up from one of my blog readers (you know who you are the one who still uses Comic Sans in emails). 

Two twenty-pound barbel caught on the Warwickshire Avon. Two. Twenty. One of them from a stretch I know more intimately than my kettle’s limescale situation. 

Now Glasgow is a city with plenty to do with some great free museums only tainted like many cities are these days with the scurge of the Uber eat kamikaze masked up riders and out of place menacing street corner frequenters.

Now, I’m not saying it was he who peddles the pinkies spreading Chinese whispers, but there’s only one way to separate fact from Facebook fiction: grab a rod, lob out a bait, and sit in the gloom looking slightly suspicious to any trespassing dog walkers, thankfully despite the horrendous wind the plane took off from Glasgow airport fine, and oddly it was one of the smoothest flights I've had for a while.  

 
A smash and grab session was hastily arranged. Rods on the Jimny, bait (stinky, homemade, and illegal in three EU countries) in the bucket, flask brewed, and off to the river I went like a barbel-obsessed bat out of hell. The plan: bait and wait. Dusk till done.

And honestly? It was glorious.

Not because I caught anything of note spoiler alert, I didn’t but because sitting on the Avon’s banks, in the half-light, with clouds creeping over the fields and owls hooting like rave MCs on a comedown, was exactly what I needed to realign the chakras after a weekend of hedonism.

 
So yes, the river might be low, the fish might be shy, and my ears might still be ringing like a fire drill in a biscuit tin but you can’t beat the peace of a quiet riverbank.

…unless, of course, someone’s genuinely had two twenties.

In which case, I’m fishing every evening until my bivvy grows moss and my missus files a missing persons report. Joke, that is not me at all but my PB of 12lb and 14 ounces is easily beatable on the Warwickshire Avon with the fish that seem to be swimming about there at the moment. 

Anyway nothing much to report for the first go for a big Bertha !! I baited one swim came back to it after 45 minutes with nothing bigger than a 8 ounce perch milling around and a load of bait fish, and then decided to go all out in the main swim. 

Almost 2 hours fished in to dusk and a tad beyond to only a couple of chub snatches and pulls but it was a nice swim I've not really fished this way before having targeted others species before and I can see why a big fish would like it here given the challenging summer conditions. Some depth but also some extra oxygen from the oxygenated water.

Warwickshire Avon - Selfies and Selenography

The Warwickshire Avon, that meandering mistress of hope and heartbreak, greeted me with her usual murky indifference. I arrived armed not with optimism (that died years ago somewhere near Bidford), but with a small rechargeable light, a questionable rig, and enough bait to sink a modest canoe.

You see, someone had asked me recently how I manage those moody, torch-lit trophy shots without invoking the demonic flash of a phone camera from 2006. The answer is delightfully unsophisticated: a £12 dimmable light, bought in haste from the darker corners of eBay, wedged awkwardly in the bank with a bendy bankstick and sheer will. It’s always in my bag, next to the emergency pork pies and philosophical despair.

This session was supposed to be a quick smash-and-grab—no midnight vigils (there are rules after all !!), no existential crises by the water's edge, just in, out, barbel about. Same peg as the near-double the other evening; a fish so fine I almost forgot to photograph it with my headlamp set to “interrogation mode.”

Today’s twist? The “Gluttonous Chub Poka-Yoke Rig”™. A concept borne not of science or field-tested data, but rather the caffeine-fuelled madness that strikes when you've blanked three times in a row and start imagining a rig that can outwit chub by being too delicious to resist yet oddly selective. The idea was simple: one enormous bait roughly the size of a golf ball, if that ball had spent time in a curry house and some freebies slung out for good measure.

I had just begun my careful setup when two of the Avon’s regulars plodded down the track. Lovely fellas, both more interested in chinwags than chub. Thursday is their social. Rods out, thermos open, bite alarms off. Fishing is incidental a performance piece more than a pursuit.

We exchanged pleasantries, a few jokes about barbel becoming an endangered species, and parted ways before they could notice that I was fishing with a bait large enough to choke a badger. First cast, textbook. PVA bag deployed, pellet sunk with promise. 

Gin-clear water glistened under the waning sun. Half an hour passed. Then it happened. A bite. A twitch. The sort of nod you’d expect from someone at a funeral buffet who’s just clocked the sausage rolls. Strike! Contact. Result? A chub so small it looked like it had been grown in a test tube. It swung in with all the grace of a wet sock. So much for the rig being chub-proof. More like chub-encouraging.

Still, the witching hour approached, and with it that deliciously pointless hope that something big and bewhiskered might make an appearance. I waited. The Avon gurgled. A bat flew into my rod, 5 times. I forgave it. 

The curfew loomed thirty minutes past official dusk. Enough time for a miracle, or at the very least, a half-hearted twitch. But alas, the rod tips remained static. 

Even the otters didn’t bother showing up. I reeled in with all the enthusiasm of someone checking a lottery ticket with two numbers and a bonus ball.

Blank? Technically yes. Spiritually? Also yes. But such is the way of the river.

I packed up, torch unused, head full of excuses, and trudged back to the car. You can’t win them all, but at least you can fail under moody lighting with style.

Warwickshire Avon - Barbel and Barodynamics

With Sam and his mate Matthew turning the house into something resembling a low-budget episode of Gladiators (complete with makeshift swords, questionable logic, and an ambient soundtrack of thudding limbs), I did what any peace-starved angler with a pulse would do I legged it. The Warwickshire Avon beckoned like a siren with scales, and I answered the call quicker than you can say "Two Tier Keir"

The plan, as ever, was as simple as it was effective: plonk in a few freebies, let the swim marinate like a Sunday joint, and then lob in a PVA bag stuffed tighter than my tackle shed drawers. I wasn’t expecting much until the light faded and the bats started performing aerial acrobatics worthy of a Cirque du Soleil understudy.

After a couple of hours with more inactivity than a teenager on a Sunday morning, the first sign of life came in the form of a pint-sized chub, which managed to inhale the gobstopper-like bait with all the grace of a dustbin raccoon. Re-baited, re-armed, and re-focused (with just a smidge of misplaced optimism), I chucked the rig out again and resumed my riverside loitering.

Soon enough, the other three anglers on the stretch had buggered off perhaps unnerved by my choice of bank snacks (spicy Mini Cheddars and a can of dandelion & burdock, naturally) or my habit of talking to the river like it's an old drinking buddy. The last to leave stopped for a quick chinwag, and as we were lamenting the state of modern pellets (not what they used to be, I tell thee), bang the rod tip did a full-on homage to The Exorcist, and I was in.

A barbel. I knew it. Not just by the power of the bite, but by the way it powered off downstream like it had a dentist appointment in Evesham and was already late. A couple of drag-singing runs later and I had it under control, my arms doing their best impression of a badly wired puppet.

Into the net she slid bronzed, whiskered, and full of attitude. A quick weigh-in confirmed what I’d already suspected: 9lb 14oz two measly ounces off the hallowed double. Typical. Still, a cracking fish, a cracking scrap, and proof that patience, timing, and knowing when to escape the domestic mayhem can all conspire to deliver the goods.

Back she went, a gentle flick of the tail, and off into the now inky depths leaving me with that smug, quietly contented glow only a barbel angler will understand.

Until next time, tight lines and tight lids on the Mini Cheddars.