I am not a roach fanatic in the sense that some are. But my day, on that particular day on the Test, was well and truly made. Not just by an outsize specimen, but by an overwhelming sense of pleasure and satisfaction. Satisfaction which comes from having given all you have towards a particular goal, and then succeeding. In this case the goal was merely to catch something in the swim concerned; but on this particular day the cake of success came lavishly topped with icing.
So how did that day begin? With a heavy frost, clear conditions with bright sunshine: not the ideal start to any winter fishing day – and definitely most un-roachy weather. And then there was the general state of the river – well, well down even from its normal summer level, following months with no appreciable rain. The Test was off form, suffering from relatively high water temperatures, and had not fished well at all for weeks.
I knew it would be hard going.
After the usual ritual of tea, coffee and chat with others on arrival, I tackled up and made a start, trotting fast water with grayling in mind. It was an unproductive morning. My diary records just three grayling, the biggest maybe a pound and a half – a fairly indifferent fish for that water at that time. But at least those fish had saved me a complete blank.
Lunchtime came, and I enjoyed an unhurried chat to a couple of other members of the syndicate.
After lunch and a short rest I made a conscious decision: to fish a favourite swim, one I was familiar with, one swim only, and to sit on it and fish it hard all afternoon – make or break. I scaled down my tackle a bit: a six BB float, two and a half pound hook length with a size sixteen and two maggots. In Test terms, tiddler tackle, but so very necessary in those extreme low-water conditions.
I chose a familiar swim, and fished it hard. Short cast after short cast, that little float made its way slowly round that confined eddy swim, not deflecting one little bit from its course, never hesitating, never pausing even briefly before submerging, never the slightest flicker in the course of those few yards.
Before each cast I loose fed half a dozen maggots, no more, at the head of the swim. It was a case of enticing fish to feed at some point, realistically not until dusk. And of course, it was a case of not overfeeding them.
For something like an hour and a half the float’s monotonous journey went on, round and round that little swim time after time, with bait apparently untouched and float never even showing the slightest flicker of fishy interest.
At around three thirty I made a conscious decision to stop and rest the swim. It needed a break, and so did I. After chucking in a very few maggots, I put the rod on a rest, poured some tea from the flask, and went walkabout. I really needed to get away from that swim for a while, relax for a bit, before resuming the struggle. For a struggle it surely was.
In the event I spent almost an hour mooching around, thinking, and chatting for a while to a fellow syndicate member. Normally anyone would have been anxious not to waste too much time talking at this juncture in the short winter fishing day, with the best normally about to come. But today there was no such feeling of urgency.
When I did finally return at around four thirty, the swim had a more promising look about it. The sun was well and truly off the water, and it looked more inviting. I fished on, all the time trickle feeding the swim. In the space of twenty minutes or so the float suddenly disappeared twice in a most decisive manner: two grayling, one two pounds exactly, the other one ounce over that. Things were looking up.
Then the float began its repeated journey again round that swim again, suddenly tilting over a fraction, then burying in a deliberate, positive manner. I struck and connected with something which instantly felt different – there was a somehow familiar ‘jag – jag’ of a fish which gave a good, but relatively short account of itself. I was curious to get a glimpse, and put on a little extra pressure. Even in the now failing light I could distinctly make out what was responsible.
A roach, a huge roach…
Over the net it came; I lifted the fish out with a feeling of relief, and in near disbelief. A roach, a true roach for sure, weighing God knows what…
Now well and truly in the grip of that well-known and delightful feeling of the shakes which comes with the capture of something exceptional, I got the weighing net and scales ready. So excited was I that I had to consciously talk myself through what would have otherwise been automatic steps when weighing a fish: weighing net hooked on scales, adjust to zero, net off scales, fish into net, hook net onto scales again…
Carefully and deliberately I lifted the scales and net and fish aloft, the pointer all the while accelerating: one pound, two pounds, three…
With the adrenalin pumping, it was hard to hold the scales steady, but when I finally managed to do so, the needle flickered and then settled on two pounds thirteen ounces exactly.
I had a newly-acquired camera with me for its first outing; I was still not familiar enough with it yet to take a selfie, and there was nobody on hand to take a photograph for me, so I settled for a decent net shot as a memento. The fish had the look of an old warrior, a veteran of the river, with a few bits of its scaly armour missing.
I did fish on for a short while after returning my prize to the water, but some brown trout had clearly found the bait trail and moved into the swim, two of them in quick succession wrecking it totally with their lively antics on being hooked. The day was well and truly over.
Inevitably the capture of such a fish will set the angler thinking, and making comparisons.
All that occurs to some – and sadly there may be quite a few of them about nowadays – is to make comparisons with fish that others have caught. They strive for sixty pound carp, eight pound chub, ten pound bream, and so on. And if they fail to reach these insane benchmarks, they feel that they have failed, or that they are poor anglers.
And even if they achieve those targets, what is then left to fish for? The simple answer has to be: even more unrealistic, if not impossible, targets, with the whole pleasure of fishing forgotten.
Many, and I count myself fortunate to be one of these, will only want to make comparisons with other fish they themselves have caught. And hopefully the comparisons will not necessarily be based on simple weights. One of the finest – in every sense – chub I have ever caught came from the Medway a few winters ago. It weighed a bit less than six pounds, a magic mark which I still to this day have to reach, but was in incredible super-fit condition and in its first charge for some nearby tree roots it did a passable imitation of a double figure barbel. For that reason alone I can never forget it.
One of the most memorable carp I have ever caught was a lovely common which went all of fourteen pounds, well under half the weight of the largest carp I have ever caught, and certainly an insignificant tiddler in the eyes of the hard-core carp brigade. I spent around two hours persuading that fish to take a bit of surface breadflake among a small area of marginal reeds and rubbish. I became obsessive, and no mistake. I wanted that fish. It came again and again, nosing up to the bait and shying off every time, with me all the while positioning and re-positioning the bread in an attempt to hide the line and tempt it, before it finally took. Having once made its mistake, it took off at a rate of knots, sending up sheets of bubbles everywhere and took quite a while to get in the net – exciting and highly satisfying.
But the fish which really set my pulse racing and by a long way gave me the greatest thrill of all my angling career was the very first fish I ever caught, with my two-piece whole cane rod, on which was a reel I had managed to improvise from meccano parts, with rather coarse line on it. I have to own up to the fact that I was not using the traditional bent pin, but a proper hook baited with four maggots suspended beneath a ridiculously large, old-fashioned ‘marker buoy’ float.
I can picture it still in its red-finned splendour as I hauled it triumphantly, and unceremoniously, out of its element.
A roach, a true roach. Two ounces easily, if not a bit more…
