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Warwicks Avon 25/26 July 2016


The Flying Tench

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Decided to visit the Warwicks Avon at Fladbury in the hope of getting a bream (my pb stands at a lowly 5lb 12 oz), though I wasn't expecting too much as there was so little rain in the river. Had a brief float-fish in the afternoon, and had a nice roach-bream hybrid of about a pound. Well, I think I had him, I think he touched the bank, but I never got him into the landing net. While I was fumbling about reaching for the net and looking in the wrong direction there was an explosion in the water, which I assume was Mrs Esox., though she never got him in her net either for some reason. He then somehow got off the hook and swam away, looking very good with the silver-white body and red fins.

 

Night would be the important time for a bream. I had a BAA ticket but not a night pass, but the owner of the B&B said I could fish in his garden, which was very convenient! Also, It made setting up easier. I am no night fisherman, and it took me an age to set up two rods with bobbins and night lights inside them, but all was ready by 8.30pm. One bait was sweetcorn, the other was an 8mm pellet. 2 hours went by, and I was just thinking that night fishing wasn't my cup of tea after all, when the pellet bobbin moved a few inches. The fish was sluggish and didn't fight hard, so I though I had a bream, and it looked like one in the water, but it turned out to be a 4lb 14 oz carp. Or was it? It was very deep, like a crucian, and as far as I could see it had no barbules. I more or less decided that it must be a hybrid, but that would make it an F1, and don't they have one barbule each side? And do they have F1s in the Warwicks Avon? I can't honestly say, though, that it looked quite like a crucian either. I should have done various things of course. I should have checked more carefully if the dorsal fin was convex or concave. I should have double checked about barbules. And I should have had a camera that worked! Though I have genuinely now sent an order to Santa for a proper mobile phone with camera included. Maybe it was a commonal garden carp after all, and I just missed the barbules in the dark etc. But hey, that's my first River Carp! And it also gave me confidence to try sitting behind a couple of bobbins again.

 

I then got in a tangle and packed up. I'd told the B&B proprietor that I'd finish by 11pm as I didn't think I should presume too much on his kindness. In the morning I spent a bit of time ledgering sweetcorn in some fastish water where a stream ran in, but didn't get any bites and the sun came out and said to me that I was unlikely to catch much during the day. So I headed back to Didcot to look up about F1s and barbules and stuff. I'll count it as a carp.

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Let's call it a crucian John. Congratulations, you are the British record holder, I will personally endorse your s'tifcate. I'm no night fisherman either, even when I have managed to set everything up correctly and caught something it's not been an enjoyable experience. I need to see what's going on.

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You're right! For some reason I thought the record was over 5. Then it was unquestionably a crucian. As I always thought, there are advantages in not having a camera that works. So much for the politically correct anoraks who insist on evidence for such things!

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Would love to have seen a pic. For the record - my 3 vital signs for crucian ID are as follows. 33 scales on the lateral line - can possibly be 32 or 34 but outside of this is a no-no (too few likely to be/have some brown goldfish - too many - carp. Dorsal fin is always concave and the caudal (tail fin) is usually quite paintbrush like (no pronounced V). And absolutely NO barbules!

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Thanks, Chris. In that case I am unquestionably the record holder!

 

Alas, it clearly wasn't a crucian. I can only think it was a common. Puzzling about the lack of barbules, I can't have looked hard enough.

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