| MARK WINTLE |
| 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. |
PUNCH Vs MAGGOT FOR RIVER ROACH Those of you that know me well will know that I am a fanatical advocate of bread punch for winter roach fishing on my local rivers, and for good reason. But that doesn’t mean I only use bread. I’ve had countless bags of roach on bread, with some very big ones included. But in the past, I have found that whilst on its day bread can be unbeatable, often other baits, especially maggots, and sometimes casters, are better. Although many books support the view that bread should be regarded as the number one bait for big river roach, my own experience shows that it is important not to ignore maggots, at least some of the time. Those that have compiled detailed statistics on big roach have found that maggots are fractionally better than bread. One of the strengths of bread punch is that it is a selective bait. I have had big bags of dace on punch but more often than not, it can be used to pick out the roach whilst avoiding the dace. It will catch the odd chub and bream, just don’t expect many perch! It is also a clean bait to use, and with the brilliant fine wire hooks we now have, you can use size sixteens and fourteens whereas in the same swim you may well need to use eighteens and twenties for maggots or casters. A succession of trips from the New Year onwards have convinced me that it’s time to put the bread punches aside for a while, and put some time in again with maggots and casters. One of the drawbacks of bread punch is that roach seem to wise up to it much more quickly than maggots and casters. This is one of the reasons why it can be difficult to make it work on very heavily fished stretches in all but the most ideal conditions. I found shoals of roach wising up to it within the space of ten days on a short piece of river where I was probably the only angler fishing. The stretch in question is about a hundred and fifty yards long, with about six swims on it. The middle three swims are by far the best. These are the deepest at nine to eleven feet in normal conditions, add a foot if it’s up a bit but still fishable. The swims at the top are shallower and boily. There are a number of shoals of roach in this stretch. Most are fairly small, up to about six ounces, but here and there are shoals of better ones, fish of eight and ten ounces, with some over a pound, and always the outside chance of a two-pounder. My best from this stretch is 1-14 though twos have been caught. When the floodwater subsided from Boxing Day’s overnight deluge, the river was pushing, over a foot up, coloured and fishable. The roach probably hadn’t seen an angler for over a month. As the conditions improved so did my catches. Each trip produced a roach or two over a pound with plenty more net fish plus the odd chub and even a small bream. On the best day, a fortnight after Christmas, I had around eighty fish. I had fished bread punch over groundbait ( a 50/50 mix of brown crumb and Sensas Gros Gardons) exclusively, and there was little doubting its deadliness. True, I’d found it necessary to use finer hook lengths (0.10mm) on the third trip but as long as the river remained in good trim, I couldn’t see why I shouldn’t continue to catch plenty of roach on punch. A week later, after a mid-week rise of about a foot, the river was again coming into good order for the Friday when I had a day off. The colour was more than I would have liked though it was fishable. I decided to fish one swim above my favourite though I baited that swim with a couple of cricket balls of groundbait before fishing upstream. A response was not long in coming; a small roach then I struck too hard at a good bite and cracked off. With a new hook tied, the next roach was over a pound. Bread punch was weaving its magic again. More roach followed until I’d had about ten, mostly small ones. Then it died. It was time for the swim downstream. With some bait already down, there should be a few roach about. I couldn’t buy a bite on punch As insurance, I usually carry a pint or two of maggots (not always). I prefer to fish maggots with a big stick float but to save time I kept the eight BB crowquill and merely changed the hook to a size twenty Drennan Match. Baiting with two maggots, and feeding twenty maggots every cast, it took twenty minutes before I got a bite. At first, the roach were on the small side. Now and again, I got a tiny gudgeon. Then after a couple of hours, I started to pick up better roach. They were hanging back down the swim. In the final hour before I packed up, I got a perch over a pound and a roach of a pound. There was no doubt in my mind that the roach had wised up to punch.
The following day I was back. This time, I decided to stick with maggot, and forgo using punch altogether. With an awkward wind blowing down the river, I used the crowquill again. The extra weight stabilised the float whilst retaining sensitivity. I left the groundbait in its bag and concentrated on fishing maggots, again sticking to double maggot on a twenty. This was the answer. The roach switched on, with fish over a pound again. The river had a bonus in store for me. One fish felt distinctly heavy and un-roach like. I guessed a big perch, and took my time bringing it up from the depths with the fine hook link. It was a perch all right. Back in the autumn, I had tried to get a two-pounder from this stretch and failed. This time, I’d finally got a Stour two-pounder (I shouldn’t get too excited, the river has them over four pounds!), the fish going 2-2 on the scales. Two days later, I decided to fish a stretch a couple of miles down river. This is also lightly (hardly) fished. Buoyed by my success two days before, I opted for maggots again. This stretch is a two-mile length held up by a weir and is steady throughout its length. The colour had increased slightly since the Saturday but the flow was steady, and picking a swim that I knew to be OK I tackled up with a 2 gm pole float, with a bulk and droppers. I have been trying this experiment for some time. In the right conditions, you get the sensitivity of the pole float with the trotting range of a rod without the cumbersome drawbacks of a pole on a fast river. If there ain’t a rule against it I’ll give it a go. I stuck to loose feed again, and soon had the roach biting, eventually picking up another couple over a pound plus another bonus perch of a pound and a quarter. Mixed in were the ubiquitous gudgeon and small dace. I’ve been using bread punch for over thirty years, and there’s no doubt that its effectiveness varies from year to year. It definitely works best where it is not over-used. When this happens, it is best to switch to maggot or caster, and try punch again some time in the future. It’s not as if it is totally failing this season, far from it, as I had a load of good catches on it in the summer and autumn. But there is something that conditions roach to prefer a meatier bait (ie, maggots) some winters. Conversely, there have been many times when I’ve persevered with maggots and struggled, only to change to punch and catch very well. Two contrasting examples stick in my mind, both were in low water, extreme low temperature, and heavy snow on the ground conditions. Two years separated the two days, though the swim was the same. The first time I correctly surmised that maggots on a small hook would be the only way to catch the big roach. Twenty pounds of big roach with three over two pounds had the late, great Stour legend Owen Wentworth shaking his head, but it all made sense to me. Two years later in identical conditions, I started with maggots, getting a handful of small dace. In desperation, I switched to punch, feeding just walnuts of groundbait, and slaughtered the roach, getting nearly forty pounds and again including two-pounders. To conclude, I’d say be prepared to give bread punch a go on your local river. It doesn’t work everywhere. I’ve made it work on the Nene, Thames, Bristol Avon, Hampshire Avon, Dorset Stour, Dorset Frome and the Brue. Just remember that there’s no rule saying you must use maggots or casters! Next: ‘A question of Colour’ |
