Back to business

Having returned from holiday it was time to get back on my local Warwickshire Avon. Hopefully, the fish would be more obliging than their French cousins. My time away had seen the heatwave pass and with it the the bickering in the barbel world that had been taking place all summer. I didn't get to the river until until almost 7.30pm. A few baits were thrown in and a first cast was made some twenty minutes later. This summer had seen the river alive with chub leading me to start fishing with pellets again as they are not as easily stolen as my boilie baits. On this occasion, I set up two rods to see which bait would prove more effective.

Within minutes of casting a positive bite on the boilie saw a 3lb chub make its way to the bank. It seemed that the chub were still here and still hungry. That said, they were not as ferocious as they had been a few weeks earlier when it was almost impossible to keep a bait in the water for more than a minute. It was soon after that the boilie rod was signifying another bite and this time a barbel was on. A fish of around 4lb put up a great scrap before another chub took a liking for the boilies.

A pause to the action ensued as the evening began to draw in. It was only 9 o'clock but already the

A few barbel put a bend in the rod

sense that autumn is just around the corner is present. I then heard a huge crash in the water just upstream. I stood up to see the bow wave and the trail of something that had moved to the near bank. I suspected an otter so I walked slowly towards the commotion. It was then a deer spritely jumped up the bank before running away, pausing every so often to see if I was a genuine threat. It had obviously decided that the grass was greener on the other side.

The pellet rod now jumped into action with a rod wrenching bite that had to be a barbel. Indeed it was as another fish of around 5lb put up a spirited battle. Another barbel of similar size put in an appearance as light faded before sport stopped dead in its tracks. I was back home just after 10pm so two chub and three barbel was a decent return for just over two hours of fishing.