stevetheangler

Liz has been on a party (well, a party of  three!) weekend in Dublin – and it may be longer as she’s due back today but Aer Lingus has been cancelling flights over the weekend due to staffing problems as staff are coming down sick with covid, 4 flights were cancelled yesterday but although Birmingham Airport is showing their flight as ‘cancelled’, both Aer Lingus and Dublin airport show it as ‘delayed’ … so fingers crossed she gets back ok and on time at 2030.

So, with Liz away, on Monday 4th July, I took advantage of a longer than usual trip out to the Warwickshire Avon near Pershore. I’ve fished the WA a few times, mainly the Kinver Freeliners stretch when I was a member but also last year I fished the BAA stretch at Pensham. A beautiful river….

This time I made a first time visit to the BAA’s stretch at Wick just above Pershore village… fishing peg 1 …

As usual before I started fishing I had various forms of the usual ‘annoyances’…

1. No one nor two but THREE ‘flapping’ tangles that required line cutting and re-tackling … MUST learn to keep the cork I use to retain the hook in place until I am ready to bait and cast to prevent the knotting tangles!
2. Discovered I’d snapped off the very end section of my quiver tip between tip ring and next ring down … resolved by cutting off broken end flush to remaining ring so as to prevent catching the line around … worked ok. Have spare quivertips at home so due to replace. Maybe put a spare in the bag too next time.
3. Discovered I’d put plenty of banksticks in but NOT ONE rod rest head apart from the Guru bar as seen in the picture. Was ok though as I used the arm of my seat as the back rest.

I decided to fish the feeder – 15g cage loaded with crumb, particles and dead maggot – on 8lb main line/8lb braid hooklength – 12’ Ron Thompson feeder rod – starting with a size 6 hook baited with sweetcorn.

Over the day I changed baits from time to time between corn, bread and worm and also tried changing to a size 12 hook with a bunch of maggots.

First casts made from 0615 brought frequent takes but no hookings until around 0730 when bread was accepted by a chub of around 1lb. Bites dropped off a bit following and the next fish, another chub of 1-07, came at 1100 again on bread. A change to worm brought a small (6oz’ish) perch to the net…

1lb Chub

Small Perch

1400 I decided I ‘d call it a day and have a wander down the stretch … as I said this was a first visit to this venue and, as its 30 miles from home, I thought I’d gather some info for use future visits.

Seems no one else was fishing this day… but I got some photos and seen a few spots to fish next time…

And before heading homewards I decided to check out another BAA Wavon stretch (Pershore) which was on the way back and quite close to the Wick one … and also stopped off near home to check on the local stretch of the Worc Stour which, as expected, I found the access field to be high in grasses, not good for me so any visit there will be delayed until the grasses are mown down or died back a bit… and visited an inn for a pint of Ringward’s Boondoogle … :)

SO … a nice day in very pleasant surroundings albeit with not the hoped for bream … but … I’ll be back!!! Looks good for piking later in the year possibly.