Roach on the Pin.

 Possibly one of the most enjoyable of our species, so easy to get excited about when targeting them, whether or not they play ball often doesn't matter, whether Summer stalking in the shallow chalk streams or lobbing out a large cage feeder stuffed with liquidised bread fished with a large lump of flake on the end during the depths of Winter is just perfect. Sunday morning certainly felt like Winter, the biting north-easterly wind and clear morning sky certainly meant the thermals had to come out, first time this season !

 I had originally planned to go Perch fishing for the day, however with only a few hours available I had to stay fairly close to home. Having got home late after my last trip out which was in search of Grayling my gear was all still set up and with a 6gr large bodied alloy still attached normally would have been overkill, heavy overnight rain persisted and this brought the river up over a foot and just holding steady as I arrived but battleship grey with the run off from the roads I knew immediately that fishing would be tough until it cleared through. If there is one river in this country that I know very well its this one. The run offs are highly toxic to us but the fish seem to be able to ride it out time and time again, the levels of mercury and god knows what else make the water extremely bad, not to mention Thames Waters snide goings on, assuming people won't notice!

 After feeding the run with caster and white maggot for over half an hour the water started to lose a little colour and that's when I began to run my float through, as expected though it took a while to arouse a bite from what were probably very reluctant fish, as the colour continued to drop out the bites became more confident but certainly not hittable, the speed with which the fish were hitting the maggots was incredible, on such a large float in the current (which was needed to hold it back in the flow) seemed like it was working against me, it took nearly 30 trots before I connected with a fish, it was my target though just a bit smaller.

Not the neatest schematic, but you get the drift.

 I was finding in the increased flow that even with my bulked down shotting pattern the maggots were still passing the "hot zone" too quickly and that's why the bites were so quick, in the pacy flow the Roach were not looking to expend too much energy in intercepting the free offerings and indeed my bait, I found that to combat this I began stopping the loose feed and fish my float over depth by around six inches. The plan was to hold it right back in the flow, which would in theory give the Roach more time to find my bait. For a few trots it worked a treat as bagged another two Roach to 12oz or so but then it died again, no matter what I tried it seemed to work for a few trots then nothing again. Nearly two hours of the sporadic sport I decided to move downstream to another swift run, just hoping that these were going to feed better!

Best of the two from the first run.

 The second swim is rather precarious and I always have horrible visions of falling in, thankfully this time around I got in the right way up.....last time didn't go to plan at all and ended up with a pair of waders fall of cold water, not nice as it took nearly a week to dry them out. I pitched up and started feeding maggot into the swim whilst getting my tackle set up so that it was fishing pretty much level with the bottom which is uniform until the end of the run where it actually deepens up by about a foot, this is usually where the main bulk of action comes from.

 Again, just like upstream, indications were slow but inevitably they did come, this run in particular has done some big Roach in the past and I am certain if I get it right it could do more!, it has been a while since a two-pound specimen has graced my net and I would love another this season. When I connected to the first real slip of the float a nice plump Roach of around 10oz cut through the water at a decent rate, they do fight so well for such small fish on light gear. Something wasn't quite right though with the way I was missing bites.

 For possibly twenty or so minutes after the first Roach I had another two of around a pound, but I missed so many takes, so a rethink was made and totally changed my approach on the float, instead of a bulky shotting pattern and a large float, a light 3BB setup was donned and size 14 hook, the success was instant and those bites I was missing now became hook-ups. Within 45 minutes I took a further nine Roach, one of which was a right porker, weighing around 1.4 mark maybe slightly more, it had the potential to be a real lump in the future.

Future is looking good.

 Then out of the blue my float stormed under and as soon as I struck into the fish it was evident I was attached to something a little large than a Redfin, my light gear was really put to the test and getting the culprit to the net was very difficult but after plenty of tooing and throwing a feisty three pound Barbel lay in the net. That was the swims lot, well and truly trashed as I tried for twenty minutes after taking a quick photo for nothing but blank trots.

 It was fun whilst it lasted!