Raining On My Parade.

 For over a fortnight I have been patiently waiting for this morning to arrive, 0430 and it was time to get up, it was raining...collected Brian en-route, it was raining...got to our destination and guess what it was still raining. My target today was the Roach and in previous trips I have seen them to upper-two pounds loitering around the slightly deeper area's, a decent head of Grayling do live in this stretch and can range up around 2lb plus, two of which I have managed last season.

A fantastic way to spend a morning.

 Fishing this beat is a joy and I decided to start in a pool towards the top of the beat, I began trotting the pool and caught a few Grayling to around a pound, the fight's are so predictable but still I couldn't prevent them from escaping capture, as the morning wore on it was much of the same and by 10am the rain came back again and gave us both a thorough soaking before making way to fairly stable weather, we knew this wouldn't last so I made the most of it, taking over twenty Grayling in under 2 hours was pretty good going and a few Trout also making way to 2lb or so, the Roach though were still proving very elusive and locating them would prove to be the stumbling block.

Beautiful action, beautiful floats.

 I arrived at a swim where I saw them back in February and plotted up with the view to trot the area to a foam, through the coloured water I could make out the frames of some very large Roach, by large I mean two-pound plus and a few more appeared amongst the weed as I got my eye in, having found them it was a case of now presenting the bait to them whilst combating the 20mph winds and driving rain which was threatening to spoil our day out. After an hour or so I had only bumped one but then out of nothing the float stopped and slipped under, no invitation to strike was needed and immediately I could see a substantial silver body arc up off the bottom, I exclaimed to Brian I had a lump on and he headed straight over to me before I'd even got her in, with the hook clearly threaded through the top lip on the edge I really wanted to get the fish in the net before the hook fell out.

A typical Grayling in great condition,

 It was one of those catch 22's where I love the fight that specimen Roach put up but equally wished they wouldn't as it doesn't do a lot of good for the nerves, thankfully she did cruise into the net and I knelt on the sodden ground holding a cracking warrior of a Roach weighing 1lb 14oz, not a two-pounder but equally as exquisite, I do love Roach that aren't pristine and fin perfect as I love the individuality and character that battle scars and missing scales creates, pukka!.

ah, that's more like it, 1.14 of Test Roach.

 I continued to fish amongst a shoal of very big fish but I was to be frustrated by a combination of the Roach's stubbornness to feed and the weather doing it's best to annoy, the weather got so poor that I decided to sit out some time in the hut just to try and dry out marginally, a slight break in the rain saw me head back out quickly before dusk and managed another half-a-dozen Grayling to 1.04 and another Trout. A thoroughly enjoyable day and another lovely Roach to add to my collection.