2016 - Not too bad a Start!

Loads of small grayling about when we were trotting for the roach!

Mark Lindsay and I pencilled in another trip after some roach and given the current conditions, we opted to fish my local river. What was on our minds from the beginning was going after the big, skitty roach that live on a slow moving section on my local river and opting to target them first of all on the feeder. Mark brought a couple of feeder rods and I brought the one, using a mix of maggots, caster, hemp and good old faithful bread. After balling up some liquidised bread and throwing it in the swim prior to fishing, Mark opted to fish maggots and casters, whilst I gave it a good go on the bread. Mark was getting instant responses on his maggots and casters managing some grayling and trout almost instantly, a roach angler's nightmare. This is the problem with chalk streams as they contain quite a head of greedy game fish! I managed just the one bite, which was a savage take and somehow managed to crack off which I assumed to be a trout charging off. We gave it quite a few hours, but the only fish to show for our efforts were gamefish, therefore we headed elsewhere and let the bait we chucked in settle in the swim.

I think the key is to feed these off to draw in the roach!

We tried a few different swims, but all we could tempt was some more gate-crashing trout. We decided between us, as we felt enough time had passed, to fish the swim we had fished to have rested up a little. We both set up some float tackle and were soon picking up some grayling on our trotted maggot offering. I opted to fish a Avon style float with a nice size 18 spade end hook for a nice presentation when using single maggot. After some feeding near a crease, I was soon getting bites, one of which absolutely slammed my rod round - the culprit being a big old trout. A few trots later, I watched as the float edged through the swim with the centrepin spinning beautifully as I kept in tow with the float. Just as the float started to sway slightly in the current, it buried. I struck and felt a decent weight on the end. This fish was really hugging the bottom and I couldn't help but think it was a trout putting up some resistance before topping. This fish though was plodding along, even gyrating at times, which gave me a second thought that it could be a half decent grayling. As my float carried on digging away under the surface I kept the rod low and took the fish very steady. As the fish started to come up, I slowly teased the float up and saw the tell-tale sail fin as the fish dived back down in its bid for freedom. A few nerve-racking head shakes, to my terror on a size 18, and it was ready for Mark to nervously scoop her up. It was a short, but chunky fish with beautiful dark colouration and turquoisey tints to its flank. We put her on the scales, noticing she was slightly empty, and she tipped the scales to an honest 1lb 15oz, not quite a 2, but an absolute stunner nevertheless.

Although pictures do not do them justice, a fine example of the species!

After getting a few picture done, I revived the fish in the net and she was soon ready to go after taking a second to orientate itself.

Just getting orientated before she goes!

This had completely changed the tone of the day, as it was quite a frustrating morning, not being able to get away from gate-crashing trout and catching grayling on the feeder, which I, personally, do not see as cricket. Mark and I continued to have a few trots and managed a few more smaller grayling, as well as this nice looking trout Mark hooked which unfortunately trashed the swim.

At this point, we had a few options open, but the one which tempted us the most was to try one of my banker swims where we were pretty much guaranteed some roach sport. We arrived to discover it was carrying a nice tinge of colour, and after putting a ball or so of liquidised bread in, Mark was soon trotting his stick float down. Its was not long until his float bobbed, a tell-tale sign of roach about, before slowly dipping under the surface. A positive strike and Mark was into the first roach of the day, not anything massive but absolutely lovely, as all the roach are in this section. We continued, fishing in alternation, and it was not long until Mark and I were catching some lovely roach between us, all of a nice stamp.

Nice little roach, lot of them like peas in a pod

Mark's face continued to light up as we continued to bag roach, getting a bite a chuck at many points. With a steady feed of liquidised bread and hemp, we were continuing to draw the fish up from downstream and we managed plenty more roach and the odd little grayling before running out of liquidised bread!

Couple of nice redefins on the stick float

Overall, a great day out, despite the bigger roach being far from forthcoming! Big thanks goes to Mark for coming down to join me. For more updates and pictures, check out our Instagram profiles:

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Thanks for reading,
Tight Lines,
Tom