I name thee George of Jubilee.

Hi my names Daniel and it's been over eleven days since my last cast...

(Pause for applause)

...and I am clucking!!!

clucking

To be in a state of Drug/Heroin withdrawal. From the phrase cold turkey.

I was desperate to get out fishing after life and work seemed to conspire to prevent me getting out and I was in the need for something savage. The wonderful art of trotting, to sedately, delicately float fish for a crucian couldn't scratch this itch, nor would chasing illusive Rudd in clear water salve me. I needed something savage to satiate me; I needed rods being torn from rests, bite alarms screaming and battles that would make your arms ache. It's all right people wanting to be at one with nature and appreciating being out, but I needed the precious silence of the country to be shattered by vicious runs...I needed to be hit by something hard coursing through my veins.

Really, the surprise of the three foot barbel twitch would have been best, but with only a few hours to spare and the Avon being in about as good form as the England international side, carp it seemed would have to do. Searching out rarities was a gamble I was unwilling to take, so the familiar reliability of horseshoe pool nestled away at the back of jubilee pools seemed the perfect place to get me hit

I actually love carp fishing and in another life I could make a proper commitment to it if I didn't also love a variety of other fish. I get bored campaigning and am easily distracted from grey backed monsters. These short sessions margin carping are just up my street. As always the margins were my targets and the polished clear gravel where sneaky grubbers mop up dumped bait are my target areas. As always on this session I actually try to mimic these patches of chucked out bait and what always gets lobbed away at the end of a session?..corn. It's cheap and no one can be arsed to bag it for next time, so in it goes. That yellow signal draws them in every time, mix in a bit of something smelly with a few more tasty nutritional morsels and that rod has to bend round.

With one spot to my left baited up and three others primed in other swims, I sat on the ground ten feet from my rod in the shade of a tree. Dark shapes already moved over the bait and although they were tench it was only a matter of time before something bigger was alerted to the feast that lay on the gravel.

I'd barely whistled three bars of the latest CBeebies ear worm stuck in my head when the rod tip bent round and the alarm screamed blue murder. Good thing I had the fore thought to screw some snag ears on under the alarm the rod off the alarm before I dashed the short distance and grabbed the rod. The initial violence subsided quickly as a small, wildish looking common repeatedly rolled in the margin, and with one roll and twang of a fin it was free.

After checking the rig I peered onto the spot again to check it was clear before quietly placing the rig tight to the bank under an overhanging branch. A few more boilies, a dash of pellet-filled ground bait and a fist load of corn and I was back under the tree cross legged listening to the birds BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!  And the same performance was under away again. The rod tip was in the water this time as fish bolted after being nailed by the hook. An unusually spirited fight from a fish, it's size revealed a real bastard koi ghost common cross thing, which was probably the biggest gold fish I have caught to date. 

After posting the picture up on a whatsapp chat the first person to mock my mighty goldfish was George Burton off of float flight and flannel so in keeping with that popular carp angling tradition of naming fish, I name this oversized gold fish George of Jubilee. Hopefully everyone will take that one on and just to make sure, I will get it sent in for the next newsletter from the club ;)

With George set free I turned my attention back to this already productive spot, re-baited once again with more goodies and positioned my rig on the closest part of the baited area to the bank so as any feeding fish wouldn't find my line. With the line positioned carefully along the bank I retreated to wait for more action. It took a while but eventually the buzzer wailed but before I got to the rod the fish managed to shake the rig off some ten feet away from the spot where it had been hooked.

This time when I peered back over the bushes to see if the coast was clear to drop the rig in again, two carp were heads down having a munch. They didn't stick around long and soon enough I was tightening the line on my trap. More bait attracted more fish and a group of small tench soon drifted around over the bait, but once they cleared off the swim seemed abandoned. After waiting a good forty five minutes, I was getting ready to head off home via the chippy. I'd just picked up my little rod bag when all hell broke loose. The alarms shrill tone sounded and the rod arched round and a huge boil erupted in the edge.

I hadn't expected to get another one before I left, but it seems turning my back for that moment was long enough for a beautiful mirror to sneak in and snaffle some freebies and with them my hook bait. This fight and subsequent selfies added fifteen minutes to my leaving time. It was worth it though as this fish and its fight were exactly what I needed on this short session and it really satisfied my cravings for a good old bit of angling excitement and vigour.

Committed to something big.

My soul yearns to feel that extended adrenalin rush when you hunt for something more special than the norm, for that moment when you hook some unseen monster than pulls so insanely hard that you think you'll never control it, for when you see the fish of lifetime roll onto the surface and the feeling of panic before it's in the net that is so sickening. It's because of this need that I've pigeon holed myself into chasing a true specimen these last few weeks and as the time for river fishing is ever dwindling, it's there that I've sought one.

Three sessions ago I searched for a pike on the Avon. Initially it was a zander but the river was considerably clearer than expected, hence zander became pike. I concocted a plan to fish a winding section of the Avon which is known to hold some very nice pike in the slacker water through winter. I arrived and fished and blanked. By mid morning I'd searched the entire stretch and felt that I was wasting my time covering the ground again with the same method. So I took the dead rods back to car to swap them for a medium weight lure outfit I had stashed in the boot. My hope was to make something happen and at least avoid the absolute blank. Sadly the best I managed in a second pass of the entire stretch was a single follow by a near double figure pike. I watched that fish follow the lure right into the shallows to the point where it saw my ugly mug and shot off.

Two sessions ago I returned to the Avon after some very heavy rainfall to find it looking perfectly coloured for a daytime zander session. This time everything felt so right that I stuck it out zarbelling in a known zander hunting area for most of my session. The only movement on my rod tip was from the last few bits of debris coming down the river and hitting my line. In the end with only an hour or so left to fish I scampered off to a slack downstream. The bait had only been in the water two minutes when the tip nodded positivity. I waited and waited for a second indication before striking at a soft pull which resulted in nothing. The next hour was probably one of the most frustrating times I've had zander fishing. I knew for sure in the big slack in front of me was quite likely a large amount of zander and that if I could get into them it would be just a numbers game before I found a big one. Over the next hour I had run after run, tug after tug and every strike resulted in nothing. In the end, time ran out on me and I had to leave but I feel that should I have gone to that spot earlier I might have been able to crack the finicky bites by ringing the changes in my rigs, as those zander I felt were still just about feeding.

My last session though was by far the most punishing. With two blanks under my belt I felt I needed to head for a bit of a banker location. My old mucker Andy had mooted that he was heading over to Saxon Mill to do some trotting and pike fishing. It was as I pondered all the silvers and predators stacked up above the mill weir that it occurred to me that there should by rights be a few big river perch hanging around all those prey fish as well. So I concluded to join Andy and target the perch instead of silvers and of course it would have been rude not to fish a pike rod as well.

As per normal I was late arriving and Andy was already set up and running a float repeatedly down the river through the area where the larger proportion of the silvers shoal up. The shallower water below him held no interest for me, so I headed up stream a little to the one area here that screamed perch.

Seriously, how could this swim not hold a massive stripy somewhere, it was perfect with the flow decreasing closer to the far bank. The only problem was that the bank above me seemed a little to eroded for me to sit comfortably without fear of it collapsing. So I concluded to have to fish it straight on rather than from upstream a little.

I wanted to keep it simple and cheap. There was no way I was going to be filling the swim in with chopped worm as the huge amounts of silvers would mop that stuff up quickly. So I decided to fish a maggot feeder filled with red maggot's that had a bit of chopped worm mixed in to flavour them up and use half a lob worm a hook bait. 

You know I have never been so confident that something special was going to turn up, when on my first four casts I hooked a quartet of roach bigger than I've caught of the mill in years. Even downstream Andy could make out the much bigger size of the fish I was catching and made his opinion quite clear. It was my blind confidence of the impending big fish that made me not bother photographing anything and just push on and fish. But the harder I pushed the more I changed the situation! More casting meant more maggots going in and that just pulled more fish upstream and even a few inches of lob worm wasn't deterring the smaller silvers from eating it. In the end I had to back off and cut out the feeding which just stopped the bites entirely. It quickly turned into a no win situation as all I was catching was silvers and I figured those prey fish would be that confident to feed if there was any big perch in the swim.

In the end my only hope for really getting my chain pulled was left in the hands, or fins, of the resident pike. Now it's worth saying that I have never fished this bit of river and not had some kind of pike action. Till this occasion that is! What do you know, we never had a single run from two rods fishing different rigs in probably the most pike infested bit of the Warwickshire Avon. I fear that the dropping temperature through the morning may have been a factor in the lack of pike action and even catching a load of quality roach and dace early on I felt once again unsatisfied after committing to catch a specimen. Andy though finished off the morning very well after working hard trotting in the freezing weather all morning and filling his net up with a mess of roach and dace.

In truth I had forgotten what it can be like chasing after big fish. The famines can go on for some time and it seems like sheer madness to week in and week out take that gamble and forgo catching lots of fish for the chance of a monster. I know I will continue to bang my head against this brick wall though  until I feel I've satisfied my need and caught something a bit more special, as after all it's still freezing cold and things have to get better as the temperature rises..

Amazing dace how sweet thou art.

Spring is knocking on our door and it's signs speedily increase, but the frost still forms on the chilly March nights and in the last remnants of dark the world sparkles white. During the daylight the early suns soothing rays dry deep every tarmac road of an entire Winters worth of damp, leaving them white with salt dust. It's those powder white, half light highways in which I speed to try and beat the rising sun to the river. The end of the season fast approaches and after a maddening winter not ability to pay the attention I wanted to the river, I now feel if I must take every chance I get to spend whatever time I can casting onto running water before the last hour comes.

Four different people on five different occasions boasted to me only the day before that the Avon was in perfect condition. Winter green, clear and with the just the right bit of colour. It always sounds contradictory when I hear people say that the river is clear with just the right amount of colour, but I know exactly what they mean and so does any other angler worth their merit. I for one believe it is that rare state where the water has the perfect combination of good visibility so the fish see every morsel from a good way ahead, whilst the having adequate colour to enable them to feed confidently even during the brightest of days. Its ironic however that the rivers attain this perfect nirvana-like state just as the season ends.

It's about this time that the Avon's dace population find optimum condition, ready for the temperature to become constant enough for them to spawn. That's still a little way off so they are still feeding hard, and happy coincidence means that I just happen to know where probably the best dace fishing is to be had on the entire Warwickshire Avon. Only problem is... I am not the only one who knows this information, hence my need to get to the river before first light.

This ever popular section is only really fishable at the tail end of the season. During Summer the banks are so overgrown that you would need a machete just to access the river and it would hardly be worth it anyway. You see when Winter comes and the temperatures drop, the majority of the rivers dace and roach seem to drop downstream from miles and stack up in this deep slow section forming a bonanza ready for the taking, much like the sockeye of North America.

Is not the smell of a weir in the half light the most intoxicating scent? With the wind in the right direction that very specific smell can be detected miles away from the waters edge. That wondrous aroma licked round the corner, down the alley through the dank and went straight up my nose, and in one quick sniff, I knew it was going to be a good day on the Avon before I had even left the car park. 

Every time I come to this bit of river and cast out my feeder I wait expectantly with a hint of worry, even though I know that as long as Winter is cold and I have bait the fish will more than likely bite. You see nine times in ten the fishing is insane, but that one time it is not it is the worst kind of dire, and trust me, this stretch on a bad day is the exact opposite of it's many good days.

Worry was soon abated when two casts in the first bite came. From then on in it never stopped for one moment; every feeder load of grubs was eaten with nothing less than gay abandon  At first it was little roach that viciously pecked at my maggots, then after a while the dace began to show. Small ones first, then not long after that they began to grow in size.

Hitting dace bites using a quiver tip is never easy and truthfully sixty or more percent are missed. But my theory on this has held me in good stead for many years fishing this particular area. Yes, fishing the stick or waggler as many of the match style anglers do undoubtedly converts more bites into fish, but while this will put together a match winning bag it does pander to the smaller fish. Undeniably bigger ones do get caught, but probably on a ratio of  ten little ones to one big one, on the float. 

Using the feeder those little dips of the float caused by smaller fish never enter in the equation. You never strike the trembles or slight nods: you just wait for a convincing bite, hit it, and more than fifty percent of the time it's a better fish for sure.

Sport was fast and furious and the speed in which my maggots were dwindling reflected that. It was about this time that Andy who was downstream encountered some action on the pike rod he had cast in the margin. 

I watched him strike, play and land the fish before venturing over to have a look and offer help if it was needed. He had the nice plump double well under control so being surplus to requirement I slipped off to have a quick cast before he wanted a picture taking.

The tiny hook re-baited I flicked the feeder underarm using physical memory, straight onto the line I had hit all morning. I felt it drift down to the soft bottom with a muted thump before resting the rod on the butterfly rest and my knee. The other day I talked to a friend about those times when you instinctively hit a bite; seeing the rod tip begin to move in a way that countless previous experiences tells you will be a proper bite, and striking before it has had time to develop. This was exactly what I did. This whole minute may well be one of those few perfect minutes of my angling life. One cast into exactly the right spot. One bite which was detected instantly and reacted to before it happened. Then that heavier pressure than I'd felt all day followed a long bar of silver rotating towards the bank. No dallying, no losses, just straight into the net in one shot. A PB dace!

I looked at in the net and called out to a distracted Andy that it was a big dace. He though had just freed up his pike and was getting ready for me, who was in that heady PB zone, to come and do the camera job on his pike. That done I went back and took a second look. That was when a hint of doubt came into my mind and I thought maybe it was a little chub. I have had a few that I would describe as decent dace, but this thing was in a different league and I think that's what threw me at first. It took two hands to hold the wiry critter; it's features were not like all the others I had caught. Instead of solid silver it had different tones of colour. A dark back fading into a silver belly, it had a huge mouth and was wide across its back.

I know anyone who has reads this who fishes any Southern rivers might think I am over reacting to what they think is not that special of a dace. But for the Warwickshire Avon this is a absolute monster the likes of which I have never seen before. The shot of the fish in my big old ham hock hands really did not show the fish for how big and fat it actually was, so this mat shot shows her for the kipper she was. 

Ten inches long, pigeon chested and with a stomach like Pavarotti. She was with all the best possible meanings an absolute hog of a dace, and luckily for me I had my digital mini species scales to weigh her on.
The plastic box I have been using to hold my captures on the scales was only a little over eight inches long so the poor girl found herself a little bent in there whilst the scales recorded her weigh,t and my new PB, at 12oz plus.

After that capture the keenness was taken from my cast. I often feel like this when I land a big fish, like I should just stop fishing and bask in the afterglow of a great capture, not sully the moment by casting again. But I never can not cast again as my whole ethos is based on the fact that I cannot have caught the biggest fish out there. On this occasion I should have stopped and gone home. The bites withered away as did my attention and soon I wandered off upstream for a few casts in another reputable spot.

Although well populated by anglers it seemed they were having a fruitless time, bar a few small silvers. So I soon wandered back to find Andy about to chip off, and Keith who had slipped in my swim working hard for bites.

Later myself and Keith wandered off downstream to explore what I can only describe as the oldest looking bit of the Avon I have ever fished. Sitting under the sandstone cliffs in the warm winter sun feeling for the tug of a perch as it picked up my worm, the question of how long it took the river to carve that stone down from the fifty feet peak of the cliff to where I sat was mind boggling. Jeff has often written about how spooky this place is at night and I was beginning to realise what made it feel that way. It is its age! The slip of land that surrounds that river has probably not changed for thousands of years. The cliff above has, as have the fields that flank it, but the bit where I was sat couldn't due to its geography  How many other anglers had sat aside this river searching for a fat perch dangling a worm I can't imagine. Anglers, like those dace, have probably been returning to these same few fields for hundreds of years and I know that I, like many, will continue this tradition come what may so next year I will be back.