Roach Obsession Diary 9.00am 29/12/20
I obviously haven’t written for a few days so forgive me! Floods. (Muted) festivities. Frosts. We’ve had it all but I’ve managed a few casts every day, concentrating close to home, on the river at the foot of the garden in fact. This is not a straight cop-out. The swim above the gravels is a noted one and has produced odd, surprising fish in the fairly recent past. As it is close to the farmyard and all the hubbub there, it fits my philosophy that cormorants tend to keep away from commotion and that roach come to know this, just one of their many survival techniques.
What I have been doing is feeding in a half a mashed loaf around 10.00 am and then going down to fish for a while around midday. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t been snowed under with success. One chub has come my way, around a pound and a half, the colour of a peeled banana, bleached out by a week of floodwater. In fact, it was so light that for a heart stopping moment I thought I had a record dace. But no, of course. Back in the glory days of the 1970s such a possibility would have been quite real. A mile upriver from me lie The Falls, twin pools that gave up endless one pound plus dace back then. I had endless crackers to 1.03 but experts like Jimmy Hendry had more of them-and larger. But, like the numerous three-pound roach, where have they gone? What’s gone wrong with our rivers in my adult lifetime?
The thrill of websites like this lies in the feedback, I am finding. It is humbling to see that anglers like Mark Wintle are reading these ramblings and even making something of them. I have admired Mark’s books and writings. I immersed myself in his video of Christmas Day two pound roach stories. I feel that our hearts beat in unison over our passion for the species and our bewilderment and dismay that so much has gone wrong for them. Endless surveys have shown roach to be our favourite species, so thousands of folk are equally enthralled. Yet, in our lifetimes, on our watch, we have let river roach fall into unprecedented danger and decline. How has this happened? The Avon Roach Project ( and my questionable activities up Norfolk way)apart, who has done anything concerted to reverse this devastation?
Mind you, even back half a century ( oh my God, how can it be I am writing that?) the fishing here was tough and blanks were part of the game. Wilson and I used to have comfort breaks if you like, sessions where the “twos” were small ones(!?) but where we knew we would probably catch a couple. I’m investigating that possibility today, in an hour or so. There’s a length down river where the chance of such a fish is a real one even today and, if the river is anything like in order, a few “ones” will come along. It’s not the real deal but now, like then, you sometimes need to feel the rod hoop and see the tip jag to the power of a mighty, magical redfin!
?