Chub and Deer

An extremely sharp overnight frost and all the still waters were frozen over. Not that that bothered me in the slightest because the rivers had dropped back to normal levels and although I enjoy fishing lakes and ponds my true love is the river, especially my regular mistress the Warwickshire Avon.

Bright blue skies and not a drop of wind, stunning scenery and not a sole in sight, whats not to like about Winter fishing-as long as you wear enough layers!!

I wandered the crisp banks looking for a likely place to start satisfying my photography urge as I went. My plan today was two-pronged, a slow deep steady swim would give me the chance of Roach and overhanging trees where I could maybe winkle out a Chub or two.

Having picked a likely looking spot I mashed some bread and fed the central line fishing with an open cage feeder and a chunk of flake on the hook. A lump of cheese was cast towards the cover along with a few free offerings to try and tempt the Chub out from their snaggy lair.

Tazzy in the meantime explored the area sniffing at nothing discernible and keeping a close eye on the wildlife, namely a busy Moorhen and a friendly Robin.

I thought the plan was a good one. I didn't expect the fish to crawl up the line but thought the first couple of hours would amount to more than just a couple of twitches on the flake and a lunge on the cheese all of which amounted to nothing in the net. Lunchtime arrived and while Tazzy munched on her biscuits I decided to instigate plan B, a roving approach. I downscaled my amount of tackle to one rod, a net and one bag and wandered off downstream.

The fishing remained tough but eventually in swim four or five I connected to a decent Chub that used the flow to its full advantage. Thankfully the hook and tackle held firm and the relief was tangible when I eventually slid the net under a rather pale 4lb 3oz fish. I thought I had cracked it and more would follow but sadly that was it, still at least a blank had been avoided.

Spotted a trio of Roe deer on the way home, one of our native species and very rare to see them out in the open in the middle of the day.

They allowed me to take quite a few shots while I was still in the car but as soon as I tried to get closer they flashed me a big white moony and shot off for cover-charming!