Warwickshire Avon - Interlopers and Introspectionisms

“So, Daddy, what’s the plan then?”“Well, Sam, the plan is to don the waders, find the best peg on the stretch, as Keiran put it, and drown these five pints of maggots. We’ll fish the way he won the match, and hopefully persuade a decent chub or barbel to make an appearance.”“Okay, a chance of a barbel, you say?”“Yup, apparently so.”And there we had it, a father-and-son fishing expedition armed with a bucketful of optimism, enough maggots to sustain a small village through a famine, and a plan so carefully constructed that it was almost certain to go wrong before we’d even got the landing net wet.Sam was off school thanks to one of those marvellous teacher training days, which meant that once I’d finished work at lunchtime, we could hotfoot it to the river. The opportunity was too good to miss, as a few hours trotting a float down a Warwickshire river sounded like an excellent way to spend a Friday afternoon. Add the possibility of a chunky chub or a hard-fighting Avon barbel, and I…