Changes in roach fishing

[rayner]

I watched this film, the chap had a bit of an idea regarding the puller. His waiting for the float to register the bite was not quite right in my opinion.
The fish are typically hooked with the slow retrieve of the hook bait with your left hand, he was trying though,
Bernard Bryant was the name I was missing thanks for jagging my memory Kev.

 

[flightliner]

Raynor, Bernard Bryant who conceived the "puller" put the idea in to reality at Ecclesfield dam behind the old Ecclesfield WMC nr Chapeltown.
If you go up the steps to the dam wall there was a commemorative bench nearby that was put there in his memory.
I've just watched Wetthroughs video and it mentions Aston Park fisheries (15mins walk from my house) where some years ago (pre 2000) a Wednesday evening match was held over a six week period.
A guy from Barnsley won five out of the six using the bubble.
These days it's now the "Chair leg", god knows what the guys on there will come up with next!

 

[Paste paul]

Roach, they are a total mystery to me, they are all I fish for now. There seems (to me anyway) that there is no pattern, no one method to concentrate on? Every trip is different; rigs, bait, methods, etc. It's coming together a bit now with my average size increasing. I have a good run of decent roach and then normal service resumes and I am back to square one? They are absolutely fascinating.

There is something special about roach when anglers like Walker, Wilson, Miles, Bowler, Lampard, Braddock are/were such enthusiasts!

New methods and baits have been introduced. Aknib rightly mentioned the helirig for roach. It is normally used with very short hooklinks and maggots but it works with slightly longer hooklinks and wheat. There are flavourings and pellets which are definitely preferred by roach.

Roach do get into patterns........many moons ago we used to fish a local carp lake but we fished for the roach and would visit on an evening after work during the summer.
We used hemp and tares mainly because it seems to be a roach only bait and nothing else bothered us normally....... but we knew about 6pm they would turn up and for half hour sometimes longer we would catch them one after the other then they would go working there way around the lake......I’d often put bread on after that and get a few late night tench........ but it really was the same time each evening.
Also my pole at the time was 10m long but only fish able at about 8m so I would only fish 5 or 6m out for them........ I’ve found on a few fisheries people tend to fish over the roach by that I mean going too far out.... they will feed close in and feed well at that......
On another reservoir we fished I used to get pound plus roach 4 or 5m out when everyone else was throwing wagglers 20m for them......my point is they can be margin dwellers.

 

[Paste paul]

Bob Roberts has a few pages on the bubble floats in his 1993 book on legering. That's where I first saw it; they weren't thought of where I was living.
Here's his diagram of a version made from a Kinder egg. He credits a bloke called Tony Wills with first using it with great success.

View attachment 9308

This is brilliant thanks for sharing...... it’s similar I suppose to a floating feeder method........
I can see how it would work on the right day ?

 

[no-one in particular]

I read a book by the Colonel (can't remember his name off hand) who recommended making a dead weight out of cork and metal that fluttered down through the water but gave you enough weight to cast into certain spots of a river or lake. He said this was deadly for roach. It must have been written in the 50's or 60's. I doubt anyone uses it now; I was going to try it myself but never got round to it but this thread has reminded me of it so I might make one. Unfortunately I have lost the book so I cannot remember exactly what he used but I think he flattened a small arsley bomb and glued some cork too it until he achieved a just sinking weight.
Reminds me of those old books that proscribed balancing bread paste with bread crust on the hook to achieve the same effect but was usually for carp, might be difficult to do that with small bait on a 14 hook. But I bet no one does that anymore either.
These anglers were very good anglers who developed techniques over years of fishing but they just go out of fashion and get forgotten but they must still be as good today as they were then.

 

[Mark Wintle]

I read a book by the Colonel (can't remember his name off hand) who recommended making a dead weight out of cork and metal that fluttered down through the water but gave you enough weight to cast into certain spots of a river or lake. He said this was deadly for roach. It must have been written in the 50's or 60's. I doubt anyone uses it now; I was going to try it myself but never got round to it but this thread has reminded me of it so I might make one. Unfortunately I have lost the book so I cannot remember exactly what he used but I think he flattened a small arsley bomb and glued some cork too it until he achieved a just sinking weight.
Reminds me of those old books that proscribed balancing bread paste with bread crust on the hook to achieve the same effect but was usually for carp, might be difficult to do that with small bait on a 14 hook. But I bet no one does that anymore either.
These anglers were very good anglers who developed techniques over years of fishing but they just go out of fashion and get forgotten but they must still be as good today as they were then.

I think you're referring to Captain Len Parker who wrote This Fishing, published in 1948, reprinted 1960.

 

[no-one in particular]

I think you're referring to Captain Len Parker who wrote This Fishing, published in 1948, reprinted 1960.

Thats the one Mark, just looked him up on google and he died in 1959 apparently. This was a little book, i am sure it was a part of series and this one was called "Roach Fishing". What happened is I bought it in a shop and read part of it on a bus and then left it on the bus but I cannot remember what series it was part of. But I remember him describing that dead weight he had made and said he had plenty of quality roach using it and I made a mental note to try it out sometime. I think I mentioned it on here some time ago.
He was the landlord of the Bull at Downton and a renowned roach angler apparently. I have been to the Bull Inn and fished it once but that was after 1959.

 

[no-one in particular]

I just found it on google, published 1954. It was part of a series "How to Catch Them". And isn't it great you can just copy an image and paste straight into a post now.

 

[markcw]

I used to fish a helicopter rig on a Stillwater in Banbury around 15 years ago, I caught more roach and bream on it than carp, on a variety of baits. Including the small top cut off a milk bottle sweet, when on the hook they look like either a white pellet or a piece of punched bread, they also leak off a milky cloud after a while, depending on which ones you buy.
I gave a full one to a young lad who came over to see what we were catching on, he was carp fishing at the time, He hair rigged it and within 10 minutes had a carp into around 20lb, we took a photo for him, and he was glad his mates were there otherwise they would not have believed him.

 

[rayner]

Raynor, Bernard Bryant who conceived the "puller" put the idea in to reality at Ecclesfield dam behind the old Ecclesfield WMC nr Chapeltown.
If you go up the steps to the dam wall there was a commemorative bench nearby that was put there in his memory.
I've just watched Wetthroughs video and it mentions Aston Park fisheries (15mins walk from my house) where some years ago (pre 2000) a Wednesday evening match was held over a six week period.
A guy from Barnsley won five out of the six using the bubble.
These days it's now the "Chair leg", god knows what the guys on there will come up with next!

I remember ecco dam behind the club, I fished off and on through the late 70s to the 80s. I don't remember the bench, was it put there after then.
I know matches were won at Aston with the puller but hadn't heard of the Bubble being fished.
You know with how I am that both methods would be a bit of a struggle for me Mick, I'm far better sticking to fixed rigs or if the fish are deeper the jigger.
As for the chair leg that to my mind is a carp method, it was effective when it was dreamt up but the fish now at Kivo have seen it too often. Fish soon become wary.

 

[rayner]

Paste Paul, is the venue you speak of in post 23 Carter hall. I fished a few evening matches there a nice pond, they've now dug another pond.
PS the bubble is not a floating feeder, it's a slow sinking feeder, it had no lead that fishes at all depths. The slow sinker that folk use now is a slow sinking bomb, I suppose the bubble was the idea that the slow sinking bomb came from.
Regarding fish swimming around small ponds, the pond one at KJS Aston roach in the evening would do a similar thing, we used to catch them in the 60s using silkweed, the pond then belonged to Mr Ward it was a bob a day. ?

 

[flightliner]

I remember ecco dam behind the club, I fished off and on through the late 70s to the 80s. I don't remember the bench, was it put there after then.
I know matches were won at Aston with the puller but hadn't heard of the Bubble being fished.
You know with how I am that both methods would be a bit of a struggle for me Mick, I'm far better sticking to fixed rigs or if the fish are deeper the jigger.
As for the chair leg that to my mind is a carp method, it was effective when it was dreamt up but the fish now at Kivo have seen it too often. Fish soon become wary.

Gary, I was passing Ecco dam some ten years ago so took the opportunity to pop in and look at the place, loved it as a young angler in the ¥*~#%^s (?).
The bench to Bernard was there then, not sure if it's still there now?
I think Bernard's great friend and match angler Roger Pryor had something to do with it ?
You're right about the chair leg, I did know it's intended use but threw it in the mix as acknowledgement to the sheer inventiveness of the guys at Aston fisheries and South Yorkshire generally.
I'm off down there in a while for a walk.
Will look out for you!!

 

[rayner]

You'd be wasting your time looking for me at Aston Mick, I don't fish there now. The state of the road to the fishery put me bang off, the springs on the car were at too much risk for me.
The chair leg like most methods on commercials fish soon gets wary of them. They are suckers for fishing shallow and mugging. The Ide fishing at Aston was nothing short of brilliant once the temperatures lifted and I do miss it. It's about the only method I could cope with, idiot Ide up in the water.
If the road ever improves I may be back.

 

[rayner]

Gary I bought it off a guy who makes them in Barnsley or Sheffield. An odd looking thing which I never used.

Get yourself a stick and glue a tube at each, a short piece of cotton but would do nicely.
For it to work properly it should be shotted with No7 styles, the one shown in the film that Notts Kev put on is shotted with No13 shot, too heavy to be as effective as a properly shotted rig. The stick is needed to give the weight to cast, sliding between two float stops so you re not striking against the float. Cast out into the feed then pull the stick back pulling line between your finger and thumb keeping a tight line, if you wait for a bite to show on the float you aren't doing it right, fish will hook themselves against the tip of the rod so keep a slight bend.
The feeding is the key to keep fish in the upper layer of water. It works well when fish are proving difficult.
You'll soon get the hang of it.

 

[Paste paul]

Paste Paul, is the venue you speak of in post 23 Carter hall. I fished a few evening matches there a nice pond, they've now dug another pond.
PS the bubble is not a floating feeder, it's a slow sinking feeder, it had no lead that fishes at all depths. The slow sinker that folk use now is a slow sinking bomb, I suppose the bubble was the idea that the slow sinking bomb came from.
Regarding fish swimming around small ponds, the pond one at KJS Aston roach in the evening would do a similar thing, we used to catch them in the 60s using silkweed, the pond then belonged to Mr Ward it was a bob a day. ?

No it’s a place called castle dam......
Ah so the kinder pot feeder sinks not floats that makes sense......
I’ve fished Aston fisheries a fair amount but never been on KJS

 

[rayner]

No it’s a place called castle dam......
Ah so the kinder pot feeder sinks not floats that makes sense......
I’ve fished Aston fisheries a fair amount but never been on KJS

I haven't fished KJS for a de years now perhaps 5 years, pond one is shallow now. I don't remember it being so shallow in my early years when I fished there but it could have been.
Like I said I didn't fish a kinder pot I considered it too big, I know the chap who came up with the idea did very well with it at the time.
I preferred a smaller egg than the kinder but exactly the same principle. The chap who's idea it was lived in North Sheff and fished that neck of Sheff whereas I'm South Sheff, Ulley and Aston was my choice if I wasn't on the Trent if I went North back in the 90s and before it was to fish Dam Flask.
North of Sheff is too close to Hillsborough for my liking.

 

[flightliner]

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Good lad ! ??

 

[barbelboi]

If you want to read a very early book (1870) online free 'The Book of the Roach' is well worth a look CLICK HERE

 

[steve2]

There is a lot to be learnt from reading old books.

 

[rayner]

It's true Steve knowledge from old angling books is still relevant today as it was when they were written.