Some Nice Roach At Last

A couple of trips to my local river saw a mixed bag and two enjoyable days, the first of which I had the place to myself(almost) enjoying a nice mix of fish when I spotted a shoal of small barbel dancing around under the smallest of overhangs, the polaroids revealed every movement when the sun came out as a handful maggots drifted past them untouched, I upped the anti to a handful of pellets and saw enough action to cast my little stick float.

I managed a cheeky 2lb barbel caught on fine line, despite it's size the barbel went like a train and I had to use all my luck getting it in from such a narrow swim. It had recently beaten another angler by the looks and I quickly removed both my hook and someone else's which was tied to much stronger line, it goes to show the harder you pull the harder they pull back. I thought this fish may need resting but no, try as I might it didn't want any of that and stormed off as if to say "Is that all you got" The power to weight ratio of the smaller barbel is something else I thought.

When I said I almost had the place to myself I was of course joined by the local robins, cocky as ever there were three of them, the two adults and a mottled juvenile, in one swim I sat on the deck as one of the adults saw no issue with my flask or rucksack when it comes to getting a good feed.

A few days later I was off to another stretch and was greeted with a high, coloured river that was a stark contrast to last time following some overnight rain. I also saw a mate I hadn't seen for a while,  so I plopped my gear down in a decent spot a few swims above and spent the next half hour catching up with him. I was in no rush and hoped the river would fine down a bit as I wisely proclaimed that it looked too coloured to be trotting pellet.

Of course when you say things like that fishing always proves you wrong, so after starting on maggot and failing to make a dent into the chublet party that was clearly going on in my swim I switched to pellet. Naturally the first fish was a small chub although bigger than the previous ones but at least they were taking pellet and so were the barbel as the float ripped under, turns out it wasn't too coloured, who knew!

A fine start to the day continued with a few more before I went down to chat to my mate and give the swim a rest. He was doing ok on the lead but there was no roach or good chub showing on float, we talked about the roach as he had been on hemp and tare but they didn't want to know, however we both knew they were there, I returned to my swim fed a few pellets and I could just make out a few shapes hitting it dead shallow, this made me dig out the 'stick.'

If you have read my other posts the 'stick' refers to a matchstick and although the river was pushing through I just had to give it a go. Sitting on the deck as usual I was able to fish quite close in and sure enough they were roach and they were up in the water, I had a lovely roach first run through, holding back the 'stick' and letting it drop.

One roach suddenly turned into 'one a cast' for a short period as I had that magical jag jag glide in the fastest bit of water as a pristine redfin spun on the surface each time, they were all netters and I swear I was catching these fish at around 6oz at the start of the season, now they were filling out a bit. The matchstick was working again and this one was a cracker, much bigger than the rest.

The roach switched off as quickly as they had turned on but it was a wonderful hour of redfin action, superfast bites that needed a subtle approach, there's not many better sights in angling than when the sun comes out whilst you have a good roach spin on the surface, that splash of orange fins and platinum silver breaking the sun's reflection can light up water of any colour.

I caught a couple more barbel on the matchstick before changing back to float as paddlers clouded the water upstream even more. This was a cue to pack up so I bade farewell to my mate who was still catching and I did so reflecting on a nice day's fishing, whilst at the same time wondering if the parents of the children paddling know there's two sewage works just upstream.

This river is healthy, for now and that mucky colour will drop out, sadly you can't say this of many rivers around the country at the moment. Hopefully all those fish will continue to grow and prosper and continue to intrigue us anglers.