Walking on battered ground.

I can't deny the River Leam has got me intrigued at the moment. It's one of those places I always thought not really worth bothering with, but earlier visits in the year have got me thinking otherwise. The sections below and up into Leamington Spa have up until now been the focus of my attention, but the sections leading out have so far been ignored.

A text from my old mate Andy Lewis prompted me to arrange a hook up with him to go and have a short prospecting afternoon session on these new upper town sections. Ironically I have been round the parks surrounding these stretches of river many times and I cross the bridges that run through them all the time when passing through Leamington Spa, but hand on heart I have never seen a single soul fishing on the Leam. So I was bit shocked when we arrived at a mint looking river to see that it was very obviously heavily fished.

We worked our way along the Mill Gardens section covering every square inch of water with all kinds of lures fished in every way we could think of, but all we had to show for our efforts was a single small jack which I nailed very early on, casting a savage gear 4play fungus roach swim bait on a five gram jig and working it very erratically along the bottom.

After thrashing the living shit out of Mill Gardens we crossed the road to check out Welches Meadow which leads out of the town. This bit of the Leam is a stunning bit of water to look at but worryingly seemed almost lifeless. Again the both of us worked really hard covering every angle, casting at every possible haunt, spot and feature. We'd been through at least half the stretch before I hooked into my second and last fish of the day, a nice perch which took a fancy to a large red head fox spiky shad I'd been working steadily along the margins.

That was it for my action. After fishing our way all the way along the meadow and back again we crossed back over the road to see if the quickly approaching darkness might spur a little action, just as the conditions became that bit more favourable for the predators. Andy wheedled out a similar sized perch to the one I'd had earlier on a white Eco gear bug ant, but that was it for the session.

Thinking about it now, two things bother me about these upper sections of the Leam. Firstly they are obviously fished quite a bit and from the look of the spots that are fished it's not anglers sitting for long periods of time, as there is little evidence of worn patches on the grass, signs of fishing boxes or bank stick holes. It's not hard to assume that lure anglers are going in and out of the swims, and that probably means the fish have seen their fair share of action and could have got a bit clued up already. Secondly, there was hardly any fish movement at all; both me and my companion for this session are very tuned into looking for topping fish and the like, and we saw only two signs of fish all afternoon. Given we fished right till dark, I would've thought we would have seen a decent bit of movement at the end of the day. The lack of fish activity has me thinking that maybe the larger part of the prey fish population might be holed up somewhere and with them  could be most of the predators.

 I reckon if I go back to these upper sections that I will really have to try and pin down the prey fish before casting something. I think it might actually be worth doing, as I keep hearing rumours of some big pike round these top sections. Even though I think they might be a bit pressured, I really like the idea of the challenge of searching out something decent from these town waters over the winter to come.

The winter and Leam blues

Every year about this time I begin to get the same feeling regarding my fishing; I suppose you might call it winter fishing blues or, on the other hand, you could call it a plain old mood 'cos I can't go and do what I want to. This feeling normally happens when fishing options - where to fish and what to do - get narrowed down by the onset of winter. Like many of my fellow bloggers I find the only option I have to fulfil my fishing addiction is to turn to chub fishing on small streams. I don't mind a bit of chub fishing here or there, but faced with no other real options it becomes quite a bind, and the prospect of doing nothing else for another month or so makes me start looking at the price of golf clubs on ebay. The situation this year has been compounded by my eagerness to plan for next years fishing challenge before the new year sets in, to enable me to bag the seven to ten new PB's I reckon I will need to win. This has resulted in me formulating a list if target species, venues and times of year in which to target them! So already before Xmas is even here, I am dreaming of warm summer evenings watching ripples emanating from a piece of peacock quill or baking behind a set of buzzers waiting for a screaming run. But back in reality at the top of my list for the new challenge the words chub, Avon and January bring me back with a slap...

The weather had eased off a bit toward the end of the week and with the feeling back in my toes after my last outing, I agreed with Rob to go on a exploring session with him to a river I have ignored purposely for a long time.

I don't know what it is about the river Leam in my home county of Warwickshire but it just does not excite me at all. I have heard rumours of good fishing here and there, I have had the odd session on it every so often, but every time I walk away from it I never get that feeling that I want to rush back. To be honest I have always seen it as the poor relation of the Avon with it's almost static flow and smaller fish. I am sure that it could be great in its own ways but it just doesn't wet the appetite enough for me to dedicate enough of my time to find out. Which is a real pity as in places its a real stunner...

    

Carrying only a tiny bag filled with a selection of baits, one light quiver tip rod and a landing net, Rob and  hopped over each other through some of the most savage scrub the English countryside has to offer. After  a hour or so, whilst running a stick float through a nice glide, Rob drew first blood with a nice chub before missing a couple of bites. The upper section we were exploring was all new to me even though it has always been on my Leamington angling club book. I have fished the lower half of this stretch but normally only when the canal nearby has been frozen. 

Bites were hard to come by but finally after moving back down to the bottom of the stretch I located a shoal of fish prepared to engage my morsel of bread. After forty minutes of tiny bites I did manage to contact with a fish. The disbelief that I had just spent all that time trying to catch a nano dace that wouldn't even be big enough to use as a perch bait shifted me on. 

It was much the same in the next swim as my rod tip trembled constantly before out of no where a real bite appeared. Watching the line zig-zag all over the river, seeing a flash of silver; I swear I nearly pooped my pants as I dared to dream it was a big roach! But only too soon a pair of big white lips appeared at the end of the landing net.

A nice 3lb chub was enough to put a smile on my face but just imagine what my face would have been like if it was a 3lb roach.... 

As I write this something just occurred to me from deep within my addled memory! A few years ago on this stretch not far away from where I caught this chub, Rob and myself spotted an epic pike lying in the edge waiting for a tasty chub to swim by. Now that is something that might tempt me back to the Leam in the next month or so...