Late February on the H.Avon

The weather had been up and down temperature wise for early February. Not for Mrs. P and me. Normally at this time of year we head to the Caribbean for some winter sun for two weeks. This year we headed to Jamaica. Now we were told that there was a state of emergency announced a couple of weeks before our arrival. The Parish of St. James and Montego bay was mentioned which is where we stayed.

Got to say it was super with the temps at 29c with a little rain on some mornings. Otherwise perfect. We met some wonderful people while we were there and had loads of fun playing games and sometimes winning.

Valentines day

Think I may have won myself a few brownie points with it being valentines day and all that. The fishing was poor with nothing other than gar fish spotted.

I had made my mind up before going on hols that I would replace the “Black Pearl” car with a another. I had the car for about 10 years and had completed 146,000 miles in her. So it was with a heavy heart that I traded her in for another car. The first week from hols I was trying to sort a car out which saw me setting off to garages that said they had just the car for me. Well lets say sales people can be less than truthful at times and try to sell you all the cars you don’t want but they want to sale.

The black pearl

Eventually I track down the car I wanted and secured the deal. It was to be almost a week before I could pick it up. In the mean time the relative warm spell was coming to an end and a blast of cold air was coming our way. It was labeled “The beast from the east”.

There was though a very small window of opportunity for me to have a couple of short session on the H.Avon.

The first was a session on the float as the strength of the east wind hadn’t arrived. I only fished for a couple of hrs if that for 2 chub, one about 4lbs and another slightly better at about 5lbs. I met Andy Little who had caught a few but nothing huge. It was tough going for sure. We both walked back to the car park with the air temperature falling quickly.

4lb chub

The next day again I could only fish for a couple of hrs again. The wind was blowing a hooligan from the east making it almost impossible to float fish. A friend Mark was fishing and was saying how cold it was. So after lunch I headed out to find him armed with some hot coffee and a hot X bun. He had a chub of almost 5lbs in the net. He also had one other bite but no hookups.

We were both using cheese paste. So he consumed the coffee and bun while we chatted and after about 40 mins I headed off to fish a different stretch.

Cold Avon evening

I baited a few swims with a little of the paste but not too much as they wouldn’t be feeding well with the river temp of 5c.

I fished the swims alternately however nothing came along. The swim I really wanted to fish was unfishable as there was an angler opposite it.

So for 2.5hrs I waited and waited until Mark came up to see me. He hadn’t had another bite so it was time to call it a day and wander back to the cars. It was cold however as I sit here writing this the temp outside has not risen above -3.5c all day and the snow is pouring down with a weather red warning for our area. It’s supposed to last another 3 days so I expect that the river will chill even further. The H.Avon is 2c at present which is cold enough. So the fishing is on the back burner for a while.

Late Feb afternoon sun