New Stretch Re-con - Upstream end

I grew up in a small town called Kenilworth which is between Coventry and Warwick.  My local stretches of river, that I first fished from when I was 12 or so, were the upper Warwickshire Avon at Stoneleigh and Ashow and the River Leam upstream of Leamington.  The first fish that I caught were mainly gudgeon, followed eventually by roach and then finally chub.

I was thinking the other day about my first landmark catches of each.  There was a day when I was about 13 when me and my two fishing friends caught over 300 gudgeon in about 3 hours.  We fished next to each other and thought we were having a little match.

Then there was a trip in February 1977 when the river was up and coloured.  I used a swim-feeder in a slack just off the main flow and caught a 1lb 10oz roach, about 1lb bigger than any fish we had ever caught by then.

And then there was a summer trip later that year, when I was 14.  I was fishing a streamy shallow stretch and was ledgering a piece of luncheon meat between the weed.  It was only my second attempt at ledgering and I had the line looped over my finger.  I can vividly remember even now the tightening of the line and the strike that connected with a good fish.  This was my first ever 3lb chub and was my new largest fish.

For some reason, I have been drawn to the idea of fishing a stretch not dissimilar from these stretches of my childhood!  

And I have located what looks like a promising stretch.  It is about 3 miles long and seems to be little fished.  This is surprising as I have had a long walk along the upstream end and thought it looked very promising.

It is quite a shallow stretch and with the continuing absence of rain, it is painfully low.  This does make fish spotting easier though.  Among the highlights were lots of chub up to around 5lbs, a huge shoal of bream (some of which were pretty big) and, perhaps oddly, one or two decent carp.  There were never carp in the rivers I fished when I was growing up, so that might be an exciting addition.

I have decided that this stretch will be my starter for this seasons fishing.