Winter Roach: The Search for a Two-Pounder.

My angling partner for the morning.

 Finally with this prolonged cold spell I have only just fancied targeting Roach, yes I can target them all year but this time of the year the redfins are holding good weight and slowly increasing as spawning time approaches in a couple of months. Having struggled to get above 0c for the last five days and consistent frosts for as many days would have allowed the inhabitants of our rivers to slowly come out on the feed, the conditions look favourable too for a couple of trips during the week too after work, it's cold I know but these are the best condition's to target Roach.

 Having woken up this morning with the beginnings of a stiff cold I reluctantly crawled out of bed after a terrible night's sleep, my only motivation to get out of bed today was the Roach, the distant possibility of a two-pound Roach is far too much of a lure to ignore, I've had an eye on a couple of spots that I thought could produce and last season I visited this exact swim where I lost a big fish that was comfortably a two-pounder, a few trips were made back to that very swim, but I didn't encounter anything close to the fish I lost and moved on, maybe today I could get another chance.

A Mayfly in the middle of a cold winter's day, is this normal?

 When I arrived at the run I had in mind I fed it with crumb for around 20 minutes before trotting through and on the first attempt the float slipped away and a hard fighting Roach twisted and turned in the current, for the maiden fish to go 1.04 was a good sign that I was sat on a decent shoal weight wise, for the next two hours the sport was very good, as I fished my way through the shoal lulls in the catching would sometimes be as long as 5-10 minutes, to get back amongst the action I'd have to make the smallest of adjustments to depth or shotting patterns, then the bites and fish came again, if I hadn't received a slip of the float in four or five casts I'd deepen or shallow up and at times I would catch Roach at a foot under the surface in 4ft of water.

Lovely conditioned fish though.

 At times I was hitting really strong Roach, the current made them feel deceptively heavy with most of the fish feeling way larger than they turned out although I was netting some good fish between 1.03 and 1.09, the fish just seemed to keep coming until around 1pm when the bites dried up, I don't put that down to the shoal running thin on the ground but the Roach were wising up to the threat.

Best of a good bunch.

 It had been a great outing and a total bag of 28lb 14oz, my best Roach haul for quite a few years, the average weight was bought down by a couple of young fish that are coming through but numerous individual Roach weighed over a pound.

 When I lifted the keepnet out of the river I was very happy with my morning's sport and couldn't have fished better I feel, in fairness I couldn't have fished much longer as my feet even in the neoprene waders and thermal clothing were frozen, I will be back sometime soon to see if I can tempt an very special fish.

Couple of the better fish, my favourite species.