Wintle’s World of Angling

Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish, tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises.

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 weekly column.

I had hoped to get further afield this winter but conditions that have alternated between drought and flood, and rain and frost, have conspired against me. Even the day I am going to describe was tougher than I expected due to the weather.

Mark’s roach swim

The water I visited is on the upper Dorset Stour, some miles above Blandford. Unlike the lower river, around the northern fringes of Bournemouth, the river here gets much less attention save for a few locals. On the day that I fished, I saw no other anglers at all, despite passing the parking areas for several other fisheries. This had something to do with the fact that it was the Saturday before Christmas, and a lot to do with the atrocious weather.

The upper Stour – a fine prospect
Though the Stour above Blandford has yet to become established as a barbel fishery, it contains enough roach, dace, chub and perch, plus bream and pike, to provide challenging and interesting fishing. Forget the seven-pound chub of the lower river, on these stretches, a four-pounder is a very good fish, a pound roach a fish to be proud of, and a decent perch always a possibility. It’s the type of respectable fishing that is widely obtainable, hardly spectacular, yet satisfying. The bonus of these waters is that they are set in magnificent Dorset countryside, where there are no races for hot swims, and the wildlife is ever-present.

The trick in winter is to catch the river just right. The upper Stour drains the clay-based Blackmoor Vale, whereas the middle river is fed by crystal clear chalk-fed winterbournes. This means that the upper river tends to have more colour than the lower river and be more prone to flood water. For me ideal, conditions are six inches to a foot above normal winter level with a tinge of colour and mild, calm conditions. When the river gets back to normal winter level, it’s usually too clear.

What drought?
On the Friday evening, I discussed the prospects with one of the Blandford anglers. He reckoned the river to be a bit on the clear side, and with this in mind, I bought a pint and a half of maggots. The weather forecast was for gales, starting southerly then backing north, with heavy rain especially in the morning. It was going to be mild, but would get much colder in the afternoon. I awoke at seven on the Saturday. The rain was sheeting down and the wind was howling.

I had a second reason for getting out on the river, as I needed to get some shots for my feature on quivertipping for roach. With this in mind I prepared some liquidised bread. By nine o’clock, the rain had eased off to steady drizzle so I set off. Half way to Blandford, the rain was again chucking it down but I pressed on. I needed some pictures!

A mucky bottom
On arrival at the river, I set off across the field, crossing a four-foot wide brook using a bridge. The brook was two feet above its normal four-inch deep trickle and thick as drinking chocolate. Despite the state of the brook the river looked in reasonable condition, about six inches above winter level with a tinge of colour. A hundred yards below the brook there is a wide bend, and, in the gusting strong wind, I hoped to find some shelter as well as spend some time quivertipping for roach with punch. For this I’d brought some liquidised bread.

I tackled with a Normark No. 1 quivertip rod, a fourteen hook, and open-ended feeder. I had half a dozen casts in this swim but the fact that the river had only had one flood this winter has left lots of leaf debris on the bottom. The hook and feeder constantly fouled with bits of weed and leaves. Two hundred yards further downstream there is a long straight that flows southwards, and holds plenty of roach. It was time for a move.

Time to try the stick float
This new swim was less mucky but it was half an hour before I got a tentative bite from a three-ounce roach. No more followed in the next half an hour. Perhaps a change of tactics would help. The chilling effect of the cold water coming in was putting the fish off. I reckoned that a change to stick float and maggots might be better than persevering with bread.

Selection of stickfloats

I set up a Daiwa Amorphous Stick Float rod with two-pound line, a 7 no. 4 John Allerton alloy stick and a twenty Kamasan whisker barb hook. This long and steady glide is around ten feet deep and about fifteen yards wide so I set the stick float at eleven feet, bunching 4 no. 4 four feet from the hook, stringing first no. 8s then no. 10s at four inch intervals below the bulk with the last shot about a foot from the hook. The float is dotted down. All a bit technical I know but useful to the less experienced.

I have fished this swim many times, and the best line is in the fastest current that is about eight to ten yards out. I began to feed this line with fifteen to twenty maggots every cast straight in front of me. It took three or four trots to get the depth about right. I deepened the float until it was dragging under then shallowed-up by an inch until I got a clean trot.

The regular feeding pays off
Once I’d got the depth right it was a case of concentrating on getting the presentation of the bait right and keeping the feeding consistent. This sounds easy but the weather was continuing to mix it with a strong gusty wind and showers. With the line on top, I had to constantly mend the line to keep the float on course whilst controlling the speed of the float. I slowed it down to half pace. This helped me see it though at times it was far from easy in the murky and changeable light. At least at first the wind was mostly upstream and off my back.

Within twenty minutes, the feeding started to pay off and a roach of three ounces fell to double maggot. I have long preferred double maggot to single in the majority of situations in which I use maggots though I will always experiment with single maggot. The next couple of fish were small dace but after this I started to pick up a succession of roach mostly only two or three ounces with the odd one of six ounces. It was hardly exciting yet there was a satisfaction in controlling a light float in adverse conditions and catching fish as a result.

The Stour at Sturminster (click for bigger picture)

At lunchtime, I heard a hunting horn, and ten minutes later, the hunt briefly appeared on the far bank before disappearing into the distance. Another unusual appearance, and a disconcerting one, was the appearance of a large flock of fieldfares. These birds, together with redwings, rarely stray this far south, and are regarded as a harbinger of severe cold. Then the weather suddenly changed, and in the space of a few minutes, the wind backed round to north and dropped to force five. The sky was brighter too, and it was possible to see the Iron Age hill fort of Hambledon Hill in the distance.

In the brightness, I was rewarded with the best roach of the day, no monster, but a fine fish of around a pound and a quarter. With some light around, I spent ten minutes taking photos of the quivertip set-up, the river and the roach. I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance later on. Catching this roach signalled the start of a consistent spell that brought a couple of chunky perch, a nice dace and some more decent roach.

The cold water finally kills the swim
It couldn’t last. As the afternoon wore on a series of sharp, squally showers developed. The fish I was catching diminished in size, so that most were less than an ounce. To get past these tiddlers, I upped the feed rate to thirty maggots per trot. This quickly fed off the tiddlers, and I again found the better fish, initially right at the end of the swim, but later just a third of the way down. But by half past three, the river was rising, having come up about four inches, and the swim finally died. As a final wildlife bonus, I saw a sparrowhawk hunting low along the riverbank.

Pound-plus roach for Mark

Conclusion
My final bag was nothing spectacular yet the reward of skilled and delicate fishing is satisfying on a foul winter’s day. I think I read the conditions right in using maggots rather than bread.

As a postscript, I returned to the same swim four days later on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Since the Saturday, the river had been up three feet and dropped again to three inches higher than when I left it on the Saturday. With a perfect colour, light winds, and mild temperatures, I chose to fish with bread punch on a sixteen and groundbait as described in my article before Christmas. What a difference between adverse and deteriorating, and perfect conditions. This time around I get far more roach in half the time. There were three over a pound, with plenty more needing a landing net. Roach fishing at its best.

Next week: ‘Favourite Floats’