Number 29: It's Been a While.

 Specimen Roach, something of a mystery. Finding them can sometimes be fairly easy, catching them a completely different story, so on the odd occasion you know you are fishing the right areas but have no expectation that its going to happen. Hey presto! it does, that was just how it went last week.

 After nearly two seasons of not coming close to a 2lb specimen I, at last, got my chance. The location of this catch was something of a leap back in time, as a young man growing up I use to catch awesome bags of Roach with some tipping the scales to the upper 1's and low 2's mark, awesome fishing indeed. So to catch one from only twenty yards upstream of the scene of many a lump bought a feeling of nostalgia.

Simply stunning.

 Starting from the beginning of the day I set my stall out just to trot a mix of maggots and bread flake with the view of just catching some Chub and Roach, no pressure as I'd already had a great season and simply wanted to enjoy some more bank time. I started to catch steadily but nothing big, all fun as plenty of small Chub took a liking to a couple of trotted maggots, practically every trot resulted in a dip on the float. Great little bag builders with a couple of better chub thrown in the mix.

 After a couple of hours, the wading through the small chub began to slow down as the shoal became more wary, not to be disappointed by the slowing down of the sport I decided to head down to an area where a small weir creates a nice crease where often roach, dace and chub sit. For more than twenty minutes I trotted through without much more than hesitant pulls on the float, so I decided to put some flake on and changed my trot. First cast and the float sailed away, met with some force I was convinced I had a chub on the other end, not until the snout came out the water did I realise actually it was a brown trout, not what I was after but good fun all the same.

 For another ten minutes the run was baron, not even a half hearted tug to keep me interested. I changed the depth to which I was trotting at and on the second trot down, almost at the end of it the float stopped and slipped under, as soon as I hit it the pull on the tip of the rod was healthy but the flow certainly had something to do with that, at first I could only think it was a small barbel, not long after the initial surge a large orange dorsal fin broke the surface, I immediately knew what it was....a roach! and a good one too!

 The vice admiral " Brian" was just upstream of me trotting the pools eddy's and creases when he noticed what I had hooked, I'd never seen someone prepare a net so swiftly!. For a couple of minutes my knees jangled uncontrollably as a redfin which looked to be approaching the two-and-a-half pound mark was wallowing around in the flow, with the net handle at its full extension Brian scooped her up and the rest was history. Number 29: 2lb 2oz.

I think I am a little happy with that!

 The rest of the trip went by with no hint of pressure or fish of note, it was a just a matter of days away from being my second season without laying my grubby palms on such a stunning specimen.