stevetheangler

Monday, July 2nd saw me on a club stretch of the Warwickshire Avon (KF/A/WG) for a first visit of the year in the hope of capturing a new personal best bream – as it was/is probably the best venue I have available to make that a possibility.

As per the recent norm, the weather was hot and sunny with temps getting to around 30’C at its peak – and even on arrival at around 0630 it was more than warm. Luckily, the club has recently gained permission to park in the first of the fields that we lease the water on so I was able to park literally on the waterside. The walk to the river from the original  car parking area wouldn’t have been too bad – downhill and coolest part of the day – but the return journey at 1600, in the full sun and up a quite steep climb, would have been a killer!

I set up my single rod – 12’ feeder rod with quiver tip, 8lb line, size 8 hook and a 15 gram cage feeder which was loaded with a cereal mix along with maize, hemp, dead maggots and about 150ml of hemp infused vegetable oil added before wetting to a stiff mix – and made my first cast at 0710 with worm tipped with a couple of maggots.

And discovered that my worms – and I’d checked them the day before when they had been fine – had seen better days and were limp and comatose. And the heat of the day didn’t help as despite dampening with water and keeping in the shade by the end of the day they were definitely in the afterlife and breaking up when hooking them … HOWEVER … they remained bait of the day as despite giving sweetcorn, meat and bread extended trialling I could not get even a twitch on any of them but dead worm usually elicited at least a twitch or nudge within 10-15 minutes…

0720 first nudge of the tip … 0730 first fish of the day … a chub of around 6oz.

Second fish, at 0740,  was a bream of around 12oz… flowed by a 2lb 4oz bream at 0750 … followed by a chub of around 8oz at 0805…

Bream ca 12oz

Chub ca 8oz

So, I fished on but the bite rate dropped a little and it was 0925 before the next fish was landed – a bream of around 1lb … followed at 1005 by a bream of 4lb 7oz …. 1225 a bream of 5lb 3oz (only 1oz below my PB!) … and then at 1245 I attained my new PB, a bream of 5lb 12oz (an increase of 8oz from my 1980’s PB) … and then final fish of the day was a perch of around 4oz at 1315 … and then it all went very quiet and I only had small tiny tip twitches, and no fish caught, until I packed up at 1530…

Bream 5lb 12oz

And so, the day ended, but on the the trip home such was the need for a cool and refreshing beverage that a quick stop off was made and a very welcome pint of Hobgoblin quaffed….