stevetheangler

Monday, October 29th, Liz and I had intended to visit the Warwickshire Avon for a spot of bream fishing but plans fell through as we were doing pet feeding visits for friends who were away and, due to need to travel on the M5 early to beat the working traffic and commuters the delay to starting out would have made this impossible especially as the pets lived in the opposite direction to that needed to get to the river . But anyway this change was probably fortuitous for us given the huge drop in both air and water temperatures over the previous few days – see the ‘Water Trends’ at the end of this posting…..

So, we had already decided to fish a small club pool (KF-WL1) a bit closer to us and which also placed the pet feeding only slightly off the route … win-win!

So, we set off from home at just after 0730 having de-iced the car previously, fed pets, and arrived at the water around 0815 and were tackled up ready to fish at 0900…

Liz decided on a maggot feeder approach (but she did try luncheon meat as well) and I decided to float fish maggot and worm, feeding with catapulted dead maggots.

I had consistent bites throughout the day (packed in at 1500) and landed 27 perch plus I lost a ‘good’ fish when the hook hold failed – and Liz had a fair few takes but only managed to land three perch… Sounds reasonable until I say that the total weight of the 30 landed fish wouldn’t have broken the 12oz barrier!! LOL… and that lost fish would almost certainly have doubled, if not tripled or more, the total weight!

Still, it was all much fun … and who would have wanted to sit in a warm room, snuggled on the sofa, watching Matt Hayes videos instead? Ummmmm …….

Glad we wore our Damart Thermolactyl Thermal Underwear though, well worth the price…

 DAMART TOP (£13.50)                             DAMART BOTTOM (£20)

…. and certainly THE BEST available – they are used in Everest expeditions too!

And we took our Thermos ‘KING’ model flasks of coffee… stainless steel so virtually unbreakable and advertised as 24/24 hour hot and cold … and unlike many claims they REALLY are! I usually make our flasks at 2000 on the night previous to our outings and even on sub-zero days the contents are still drinkingly hot until at least 1500-1600 on the following day – and the only reason the contents are not scaldingly hot even then is due to of the pouring of cups throughout the day letting in cold air… still can’t gulp in one go though! Again, not the cheapest flask at around £28 but well worth the money IMHO…

Thermos 1.2L ‘KING’ Flask (£28)

So, as I said we packed in at 1500 and wended our way to our local purveyor of fine ales (and cobs, scratchings and nuts) where Liz had her usual IPA type ale, I went for the ‘Hung, Drawn ‘N’ Portered’ from the North Cotswold Brewery, VERY nice it was too! …

and then we headed homewards for a night in front of the TV….

WATER TEMPS:

Huge drop since last session of 5’C …. someone on Barbel Fishing World has also reported a large change on the River Severn with temps dropped from 10.2’C on Friday 26th to 6.1’C on Monday 29th at Shrewsbury (Welsh Bridge)…..

Min:    6.4’C
Max:   6.8’C