| MARK WINTLE | |
Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular column. |
A big roach campaignAlthough I enjoy the variety of targeting many different species over the course of year, I have a long-standing desire to catch big roach by float fishing. My local river, the Dorset Stour, still holds a few big roach but finding them and catching them is a major challenge.Finding themIt’s not as if I have little access to the Stour; my various club books cover around twenty five miles of river, and it wouldn’t be difficult to gain access to even more. It seems the big roach, and I am writing of roach over two pounds, are in isolated pockets. They are elusive and difficult to pinpoint. In some cases, I have a good idea where they are in summer when it is difficult to get to them because of the abundant weed yet in winter they vanish. On some stretches there are roach in abundance but catching ones much more than half a pound seems nigh on impossible.
Further upstream, I know of big roach in several stretches but pinning down where the big roach are in winter is far from easy. It is a case of keeping my ear to the ground, occasionally being adventurous in trying new stretches, and not being too disheartened if I don’t catch big roach. Location is therefore the biggest challenge in finding big Stour roach, but it’s far from the only one. Now you see them, now you don’t…One of the frustrations of finding big roach is their elusiveness. One upper Stour stretch that I’ve fished regularly has produced the occasional two-pounder though not for me, my best there being a brace at 1-14 one morning but three or four years ago it seemed to have the potential for some big roach. Not only was I catching plenty of roach I was getting a good sprinkling of better ones to a pound and a half. Two years ago, it was still OK but the better ones were much harder to come by and last season was an outright struggle for any roach at all. Peter Stone documented this disappearing act long ago. He wrote about the upper Thames in the mid seventies when after several years with a total absence of roach the Thames suddenly started producing lots of big roach. Where they’d been is anyone’s guess, and there is always a chance that something similar is happening on this stretch of the Stour. There is a lot of unfished river in the area, and if the roach migrated a mile upstream I’m not sure anyone would be any the wiser. Provided I don’t write off a stretch that has produced big roach in the past there is always a chance of finding some in the future. Some stretches of river have consistently produced small roach with little chance of more than the very occasional one of a pound, and whilst I will continue to fish these stretches in the hope of finding where the big ones live, I don’t expect them. One length of upper river is like this in that there are lots of little roach throughout but just once in a while I have got a shoal of big ones feeding in one area. Whether they are still around is another matter though because it is several years since I last found them. Playing the percentage game, or not as the case might be…One thing I’ve managed to more or less keep going ever since I started fishing in the late sixties is a fishing diary. It’s not 100% complete but the gaps are few. What it does tell me is what I caught twenty and thirty years ago with accuracy. As I have always tried to highlight better than average roach – on the Stour that is fish over a pound – it shows that some venues that I fished in the early eighties produced a high proportion of pound plus roach. Overall, I had a one in six ratio of pound plus roach in those days, and on some venues, it was better than that. The current ratio is ten times worse than that! That is one roach in sixty is over a pound, which I don’t find especially encouraging.It does seem that I am going to have to sharpen up my location skills to at least fish where I think the big ones are rather than just catch small roach and hope for a big one. Conditions, conditions, conditions….Summer conditions are tricky enough but winter on a clay vale spate river that sometimes pretends to be a chalk stream can be frustrating beyond belief. Since the start of November, the Stour has varied from very low and clear to across the fields to perfect to high and clear in as many weeks. Perfect conditions on the Stour are fining down from a big flood with about a foot or so extra water still on, and that gorgeous green/brown colour that spells big roach to me. These are the conditions to attack the river with bread flake and groundbait. I still favour a mix of brown breadcrumb and Sensas Gros Gardons with some extra ground hemp and PV1 mixed in, especially for deep water.It can be frustrating to know that one day mid week the conditions are perfect, yet certain in the knowledge that by the weekend it will have changed for the worse. But if it was easy then everyone would be fishing for them. Instead, on the Stour, the big roach specialists are rare and secretive to the point of paranoia. The river does produce three pounders every year but it is a tough game, and those that do best are those that are retired and able to choose their days out. Two simple approaches on the floatOne thing I have learned from decades of trying to catch big roach is that at times they can be delicate biters. That to me spells float fishing with enough sensitivity to spot the bites if at all possible. Mostly I fish with crow quill Avon floats in winter. These can take anything from 4BB to 5SSG – the usual size is around 8 – 10BB. I like a simple shotting pattern of a main bulk, then a mini bulk about six inches below that of two or three no. 4 shot with two no. 8s bunched as a dropper on the 22″ hook link. For bread fishing, I use a size 16 or 14 for punch and a size 12 or 10 for flake. These may seem big hooks but they work! My favourite all time big roach hook is long out of production.
For finesse maggot and caster fishing, I would switch to a John Allerton alloy stick with classic shirt button shotting. A ray of encouragementWhen John Searl launched his book at Twyford near Reading in late November, I got the chance to talk big roach with Peter Wheat, Stu Allum, Dave Howes (the finest roach angler of them all) and Vic Beyer. As we put the world to rights on a cold dank day with the nearby river Loddon still high and coloured, I remarked that I fancied the chance of getting a big roach on the Stour the following day. I knew that it would be mild, the river would be dropping with some colour – just perfect, and that the only thing to do was to have a crack at it.On the Sunday I got off to a flying start on the first swim I tried, getting net roach on flake from the off before getting one of a pound and a quarter, followed by some smaller ones. Then it was off to the toughest swim on the river. I hadn’t fished it for several years, and neither had anyone else judging by the overgrown banks. I managed to find a way in and fished at long range, confident that this was the spot for it was the very swim that had produced my last Stour two-pounder nearly seven years ago. Within an hour, after a couple of small roach, I had a confident bite and felt that wonderful heavy thump of a big roach on the rod. As the roach got close in, it tried to snag me a couple of times but I steered it clear of the sunken reeds, and into the net. As soon as I saw it knew the long wait was over; carefully zeroing the landing net head on the scales I weighed the roach at 2-02, and took some shots.
Since then I’ve been back but a rising river (most weekends) and bitter cold (one weekend) have put paid to any chances of a repeat performance though I’ve had some decent roach. It is a case of waiting and watching, of being patient for the right conditions. Perhaps one day I shall find that elusive Stour three-pounder… A bread postscript…For years, I’ve heard mention of Warburton’s bread as ‘the’ bread for fishing, and it’s finally got this far south. The big one mentioned above was on my first go with it and it is definitely the dogs whatsits. One final thing though, for us Dorset folk it’s pronounced ‘Waaarrrrrburrrrrtuuuurrrrnnnnsss’ but Graham assures me it’s more like ‘Wa’bu’tons’, whichever, it’ll be my bread of choice from now on!
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