Those maddening darn Roach

Those who have cast a line for a big Roach will already know of the fickle nature by which they can possibly feed, and do not need me to remind them of the maddening ability to pluck a Roach develops around the age of 10oz. With a barbel, carp or pike and their developed methods of capture, angling them has become simple in a way. Simple in that once the finned culprit has the intent of your bait upon it's mind it comes down to a simple choice of yes I am going to eat it or no I am not. Whereas in the case of the not so humble big Roach it becomes a case of sucking, plucking, blowing, spitting and possibly maybe even eating. Add into this infuriating equation a flowing river and a recipe for madness is complete. Oppositely there are those days when like all fishes the big Roach can be as stupid and gullible as an angler in a tackle shop; to be on that bank on that sacred day is the provision of a lucky man, one whom in the past may have stumbled over a pile of rocking horse droppings and landed face first in a patch of four leafed clovers. But for most of us even if we know the location of a sacred shoal and we enjoy angling for a pound of silver in our net, we will have to endure a little madness as payment for the honour.

Having decided that Roach were to be my quarry of the day, I wondered as I drove south in the dark whether if by magic today was to be my day again, as I have had only one other real roach red letter day in the past.

Though before feeders filled with bread crumbs arc across the Warwickshire sky, another darker date stood before me. I do find it hard these days to visit the Avon without a a Zander rod in my quiver. Even if like on this trip I only have a short while to await for that single nod of my rod that might indicate the subtle intentions of a Zander. I still do it.

Early on as dark became light I had two enquiries in quick succession. I wouldn't say I missed them, just that the Zander responsible for both bites had a change of heart at the last moment, and put down my dead Rudd bait for reason only known to them. Although I suspect my pack of frozen glassy eyed fish may have been in and out of the freezer one to many times to be considered fresh.

Done with distractions of the predatory kind I shoved off upstream to the spot I knew I would fish. Ever since my arrival I had been watching it out of the corner my eye hoping no wasteful lure angler would pass through and ruin the whole area searching for a pickerel of a pike, which would probably not look twice at there gaudy rattling lure. 

Winters and floods change the dynamics of swims easily, and this one was changed since I last cast here. The flow is now channelled awkwardly across the centre of the swim and worse the soft biting fish lie just beyond the entire pressure of the  Warwickshire Avon on a small gravel run. The swim will again change when the next flood rips away the barriers accumulated on the far back which on this occasion hinder me. But for today it is just a case of making do.

It takes me a while to figure where my bait ends up on my first cast. Unlike a feeder full of wetted ground bait which sinks fast, a feeder stuffed with fluffy liquidised bread sinks slowly allowing the river to catch it and deposit it much further downstream than a wet crumb feeder. 

It's making bottom at least two metres further down stream than I want it to, so I compensate by flicking it further into the flow and my calculations are rewarded with a bite. Albeit a very subtle one. 

A few more loads of bread clouding through the water gets them in the mood and the tip now dances feverishly as fish pluck at the bread. Then finally a tiny sliver blade wriggles in after the feeder. The hooked fish drives off the shoal and I have to wait a while for the next bite. But once that comes they once again begin to compete.

A proper bite results in resistance on my light rod and a beautiful 13oz roach is landed and my hopes that the red letter day could begin get higher.

After this the madness begins! The shoal is disrupted and for all I can figure are moving round the swim. As the bites seem totally random, I focus as we are told, on one area, and try to hit the same spot again and again which does seem to get them in line a little. They have no confidence but infuriatingly are still interested in eating.
How many bites I strike at and miss grows quickly and my-patience to deal with this dwindles. In the end I find myself hitting good fast roach bites as the tip comes back, and no fish can be hooked when your bait has been spat out.
Luckily for my sanity they push off and the bites stop and now my tip sits still. The thought that a big straggler may still move over the baited area makes me stick around for sometime just in case. Soon enough I move off again down stream to a another choice spot. Here again the bites come quickly and a small chub which is novel in this section for the river gets away in a snag under my feet.

All too soon it is time to go as other engagements press my time. Even though those infuriating fish have pushed me close to the edge, I still wonder when I will be back as I walk to the car.

Otter a nutter and a liar

Sunday morning shortly after my 2nd alarm rang, I lay in bed in that place which is neither asleep or awake and half wondered whether I should get up and go fishing, or just roll over and go back to sleep. Problem is that I haven't as yet this year done any early mornings, and truthfully I am not naturally an early riser. This combined with me still feeling like my head is stuffed full of cotton wool after a gargantuan two and a half weeks of lingering cold, has me feeling a little reluctant to venture out in the cold damp morning air.

I knew I had limited time on my hands so I forced myself up and slipped out the front door. The night before it had seemed prudent that with my time constraints I should go down my local trickle to maximise time out and not waste my time driving somewhere. Not only that but returning home the day before I caught a glimpse of the brook as I drove over her and she looked good!

On my short walk from my house to the brook I noticed a rather interesting person walking up the opposite side of the road on an early morning jaunt. To all intents and purposes it looked like this young man was trying to fend of a rampant swarm of those giant invisible wasps we are seeing around here in this warm winter. It seemed best we both stay on a opposite sides of the road and when we were opposite each other and he very loudly began to inform me the were "no fish here" again and again and again and again at the top of his voice, which I am sure woke half the people in Coventry, if not Bedworth too. After exchanging pleasantries and a few peculiar hand gestures I bid the colourful gentleman farewell and carried on my way,  hoping to god he wouldn't follow me.

My first stop was at a swim I have now entitled the Gaza strip! It's a long straight run which even in low water drops down to three foot half way down the tall reeds and maintains that depth to the road bridge where it quickly shallows up and is situated right on the edge of no mans land.

I searched out this entire run fishing a super light quiver rig baited with small pinches of bread. Only to find it is so solid with minnows that a bait only lasts about two minutes wafting in this swim!

The next swim I moved to was on the opposite side of the bridge, where the water shoots out of a bottle neck with more force than anywhere else in this diminutive water. This too was chock full with minnows, although the increased flow turned their normal vibrations into full on bites.

Although both runs looked the part, nether produced anything other than whittled bread and foul hooked minnows. So I opted to move on again.

Before I left I had to answer the call of nature. Rather than have some passer-by call the law about and flasher down the brook, I ducked under the bridge. The river had obviously fallen recently and left soft mud beach on the edge next to the concrete where I saw something very interesting. A set of paw prints running into the water! A lot of them were fouled by each other and I could not get a good snap shot of them. But to me the seem about the right size for an otter.

If it is an otter I would be amazed, as that would mean they are at least 2-3 miles inside the city foraging amongst dense human housing. I am not totally convinced they are otter tracks though I have checked them out online and they look pretty similar.

That's all we need round here, urban otters loitering round under bridges smoking and threatening local water voles. Seriously though is this otter thing as bad as we think it is, or is it worse? I myself was never drawn into the whole Zander being murderous fish that kill for the sake of killing, and look how that panned out.  I have to wonder are we putting otters in the same boogey man category or are they actually destroying our fish stocks, because I keep seeing all these fantastic fish in the fishing rags and the Internet. So some of us are still managing to catch some fish before the otters get them. Truthfully I am not sure whether they are having the impact the media seem to claim they are.

This actually got me thinking. I have been fishing for 25 years in the UK and in all the time I have spent on the bank, I have only seen one maybe two otters and truthfully I have only seen five or so injured fish.

Now I know that I am only one angler so I suppose I must ask whomever reads this. 

- Have you ever seen an otter?

- Have you ever found signs of otters?

- Have you ever caught or found mutilated fish?

To be honest I currently find myself in neither camp for or against otters, as I have never seen first hand what they can do to a fishery. This could change in the future. But for now one niggling thought repeatedly pops back into my head. 'Who was fishing here first, us or them?'

After seeing the tracks I moved on down the tiny river and proceeded to bag four small chub from the next four swims which lead me to a conclusion about the chub in this zone of the river. They seem to all be the same size and I am a bit worried that is as big as they go here.

With only an hour left I went back upstream to an old haunt where an dog walker approached me. It turned out he was also an angler and he then passed on some information regarding whom and what resides around this brook.

I know anglers have a undeserved reputation regarding how big we say the one we caught was. Well this bloke was the king of angling flim flam. (if your reading this Jeff, sit down mate!) apparently he had deposited over 60 carp into the brook and only a few weeks ago the EA came down and removed fifteen fish from a deep hole up the way and the biggest was over 35lb.

If this guy had any idea how big a 35lb carp is he'd understand that a fish of such a size would only have half it's mouth in the water if it laid on it's side in this brook.

I think for my next trip out I may need to head back to the solitude of the country to get away from, well everything.

weightless winter morn.

Recent suggestions for up coming fishing trips, and the general attitude of  a lot of people I meet, would have you believe that winter is just about over and spring will soon be upon us. Well my arse it is!!! I have this horrible feeling that sooner or later we are going to get some proper bad stuff. Admittedly I could be wrong, but either way I will be thinking very hard before involving myself in any night sessions for a while to come, unless the temperature rises by at least ten degrees and stays that way permanently. As for species I am playing it safe so off to the river after old Mr Chavin for me.

Walking across crispy frozen grass Sunday morning I could not help but remark to myself that of all the outfits which old England wears, by far my favourite is the frosty white number she sports repeatedly over winter. Be it meadow, wood, or ploughed field they all look great covered in crystals of ice. Especially on the way to a river.

A while ago I watched a short video on Martin bowlers website http://martinbowler.co.uk/online-videos where he used a floater cake to counterbalance a gob of cheese paste for chub fishing, and last time I was out it popped back into my head. At the time I didn't have the stuff to have a go so this time out I had the required bits and was ready to give it a bash. 

I am a huge fan of critically balanced baits and use them whenever I can whilst fishing. As fish do not have hands to test out things with, they must use their mouths and should a weightless bait fly in their mouth as the test it, a panicked fish and a sprung trap are inevitable.

Early last winter I knocked up a batch of random shaped pop up boilies to imitate bread to be used on a few different venues. They worked great for tipping off boilies with a fleck of white and worked even better for threading on a hair and squashing a hunk of bread round surface fishing for carp. And they seemed the perfect way to reduce the weight of some very fruity smelling cheese paste on this trip to the upper Avon.

Hook a buoyant bait onto a huge size 2 Drennan specialist

place on top of a flattened piece of cheese chod

 mould into required shape leaving hook point exposed

Another thing that Mr Bowler suggested, and I have also used before to search out Chub, are very light weights. By using not quite enough lead to hold bottom the flow of the river automatically pulls the bait into areas with less flow, where any energy saving fish can sometimes be found waiting for a tasty morsel to pass by in the heavier flow.

I used to solely use multiple swan shots until I discovered these giant shots made by Preston Innovations which seem to be the equivalent of 2-3 swan shot. It may seem trivial to most other anglers why I should use one large shot in place of two or three smaller shots. But as far as I can tell it makes a totally different sound hitting the water and you only have to pull one shot of the line should a fish find weed and need to be extracted.

Then cast the slowly sinking free moving bait into your favourite chub hole and wait. It took all of ten minutes for my rod tip to make a slight but significant tremble. I never even waited for the tip to go all the way round before I struck into a hard fighting fish.  I do have the utmost respect for chub as they are the dirtiest fighters that swim and that combined with their willing to feed worst conditions makes them a winter favourite. 

The hooked fish made an attempt to get under every possible bank, snag and weed bed within twenty feet. But finally it hit the net and carried on swimming like it was still in the water just like a tuna does when hauled from the sea.

Thank you very much Mr Bowler for the tip - it worked a treat! 4.5lb of long lean chub makes a chilly Sunday on the river perfect. I was shocked at how lean this fish was to be truthful. Had it been proper plump this would have been a five plus fish every day of the week.

I did have a few more fruitless casts in the first swim before I dropped down river a way and a rather rude half pound fish ruined my next swim, by making a god awful racket splashing around and shedding my hook.

The rest of the morning was spent residing at the head of a beautiful run with the Sun warming me. I knew full and well that the clear river and bright midday sun did not bode well for any more fish. So I enjoyed the last hour or so sipping warmish tea from my flask as I stared up at the amazing azure sky from my grassy corner overlooking the river.

The river where

My year has not started well at all! I made that stupid mistake we all make from time to time and proclaimed that 'touch wood I had not been ill so far this winter'! As a result of this frivolous and poorly vetted comment I became ill on new years eve and have been ill ever since. Without being too graphic, I have suffered just about everything this virus has to offer all parts of the human body. Happily I am just about over it and the only the remaining symptom is that my voice resembles a rusty wrought iron gate swinging in a stiff breeze.

My problems of late have been compounded by my car getting written off just before the holidays and me now being reliant on the charity of others for transport. Though it all seemed to be coming good with a Sunday trip on the cards down the Avon. But! and that's a BIG but!!! only one thing stood in my way. The winter bloggers meet at a local watering hole. And that went a bit like this... a group of anglers turn up at real ale serving establishment, they chat  mercilessly on one topic whilst downing  pint jars full of ale like rampant Vikings and sometime after the others started to slip away so my did memory. After that point what I could remember was like a movie montage. Glasses, laughter and Keith applying make up to Jeff...

I awoke the next day with some kind of chili sauce caked into my beard and with my throat feeling like I'd eaten thumb tacks. A cup of tea later and the faint recollection that we had meant to have gone fishing crept into my head.

Whilst I attempted to salve my rising heart burn, Robert confirmed that we had in fact inducted Jeff into the mornings proposed session and that we were already an hour and a half late to collect him. Immediately we struck into action! Rob like a sedated slow loris and me like a stoned tortoise. We did eventually pick up Mr Hatt. Two and a half hours late, but that didn't matter as he was just about as confused on the previous nights arrangements as us.

It wasn't until we seemed to be travelling in the wrong direction that I asked Rob whom was piloting this precision mission where we were going, as he was driving a seeming long way of course. It turned out we had changed plans the night before and were going exploring today not back to an old haunt.

With a fuzzy head and my recent fishing drought, all I cared about was the presence of water and certainly not location. Soon enough we arrived at a river. Which was actually the fat arse end of mine and Jeff's beloved river Sowe. But for all us three knew about this bit it could have been anywhere.

The weir looked the part so I snatched the primo swim whilst Jeff was gawping at his plump mistress rolling by and whilst Rob scampered of through the thicket searching for pastures new. Only problem was how to get down a step bank without ether vomiting or falling in. I managed it and quickly applied my new simplified fishing mathematics to the venue.

January + River +  Angler + Hook + pungent cheese paste = Chub

First cast of the new year and one fish! this can't be bad. So I tried again and cast my over sized cheese ball into the flow. This time it rolled back to my own bank unhindered. But half way through my third roll, tap tap strike ended with something big ripping me off. It had to be a barbel which I know for a fact exist just downstream in the Avon, as no chub in Europe was snapping the agricultural gear I had on.

I thought the capture of one fish and the loss of another may have ruined the swim so I cast around the tail of the pool thinking the fish may have backed off a bit and explored all eddies and riffles.

The classic one last cast under the most precarious bush on the whole swim brought me a second nice chub just before I upped sticks to wander off downstream in search of a new swim.

The rest of this section of the Sowe was virtually impossible to access, though we did discover a little gem of a run, where no less than five different fish rose to passing bread crusts. I got three takes at range by floating a hunk of crust downstream and missed every one like a numpty. My attempt at creeping closer only served to send them flying into cover. Now I have seen chub take crust of the top and know that If they come up to grab it they have it! But these fish were a lot more coy than any stupid chub I have ever seen and when I went right up close and took a peep, the culprits were gone and the swim was literally only inches deep. Leading me to conclude that they may have been not old rubber lips, but maybe just maybe that rarest of Warwickshire fish population. Wild trout!

Living the dream... slightly!

Someone once said "I have a dream", well so do I! albeit a little less world changing. My dream is not one that will profoundly change other peoples lives but one that would certainly be very nice for me, should I ever be lucky enough to live live it.

I dream of a small cottage clad heavily with years of ivy growth, situated close to a small well kept stretch of river in the middle of nowhere. Where early on Christmas day I would wake and slip out of bed to peer from misted windows to see rolling fields shrouded in frost.

Before venturing out I would stand and enjoy the sights further as I sipped steaming tea standing in a quint old kitchen eating an oak smoked bacon sandwich. My belly filled and body fuelled I step out in the sharp morning air rod in hand and begin my short jaunt down to the waters edge.

As I walked the frozen grass and leaves would crunch under foot and as I passed through  the small coppice picture postcard images of red breasted robins and cheeky squirrels would fill my eyes and warm my soul before I finally reached the bank and settled down to spend a short time casting for a precious bite on Christmas morn. Returning back to the cottage a roaring log fire would await me and the smell of roasting turkey would fill my senses.

But that is just a dream! and in reality I have yet been unable to shake the shackles of Christmas in the city where work holds me back, unable to realise my dream. But this year an Angel appeared before me and told me that as last year we spent our Christmas at my family's house, this year we would stay at home and instead invite others to us. Which did not surprise me at all, but what she said after this did!!! "So if you want to nip out for a couple of hours fishing feel free" It took a moment for this to compute and an another for me to shut my gaping mouth. But that was it! it was on. A fishing trip on Christmas day.

A strict curfew and common sense procluded travel. But with my car currently out of action I have been developing an acute appreciation of my tiny stream round the corner, down the hill and up the road.

So early on the 25th I lived out my dream minus the cottage, frost and southern chalk stream of course.

The water had a tint of winter green and I fished a few swims on my precious little brook. Bites were had at every stop but it wasn't until I settled for a while on a deeper looking glide and flicked out the ubiquitous pinch of bread that the fish began to flow as did the hooch from my hip flask.  

Although no monsters were caught every wonderful little fish meant ever so much to me on the dream realizing session and I ended up catching (sung to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas..!)

Three tiny minnows,

Two small roach,

And a chub of maybe a pound!

I hope you all made much merry over the holidays because I did and I wish everyone a happy new year where your lines are tighter more than they are slack.

A winter warmer

The total of my last couple of trips can be summed up quite easily with only a few lines and a couple of pictures.

On Sunday all I netted in four hours of fishing on the gin clear canal was about fifty pounds of ice!

On Wednesday myself and Andy had a ten hour picnic next to a massive wind swept gravel pit!

I think everyone still mental enough to be fishing here in the UK will agree that the fishing has certainly taken a turn for the worse since the winter has set in. And I for one will be re-evaluating my approach for the next few months to counter for this dramatic change.

- No more messing round on lakes, unless pike are involved.
- If I even suspect a venue may be frozen I ain't bothering.
- Stick to the rivers at all costs.
- Target only the species that can feasibly be caught (no chancing a rare catch)
- Use the two pound block of  stinking cheese paste that Jacky's been trying get out of the freezer all year.

Being a little bored I have been looking back trough my blog and dreaming of easier days gone by. Whilst looking through it I discovered that of all the posts I have done in the last few years, one has been the most popular and  most viewed ever since it was posted. This in turn reminded me that a while ago I had written a little tale which I had extracted from this post and expanded on it a little. And in this time of little action to blog about I felt this short may hold a little interest and warm a few cockles.

A knock out Barbel

A few years ago whilst targeting some very respectable Barbel on clear shallow section of the upper Warwickshire Avon  I went through what can only be described as a unbelievable run of comical disasters whilst trying to land even just one single Barbel, leading up to the crescendo that I will never forget. 
I endured numerous problems including; having a close friend spoil my best chance of the entire summer through a morbid fear of wasps, a rod snapping like a twig whilst playing a very nice double figure Barbel, which I subsequently lost; and having a mink dive in where I was fishing sending every resident of my favourite swim off for days. 
But by far the worst and final disaster happened on a surprisingly hot and hazy autumn afternoon. 

One of the best swims on the entire stretch of river had a mouth watering willow which had slumped over into the river. All summer long a huge mat of debris had built up around it making the perfect hiding place for a resident shoal of Barbel which ranged from three pounds right up to oh my god. 

Perfect as it was this swim had one major drawback. One of its bows supported it perfectly from the bed of the river and just happened to be dead centre of the entire hidey hole, which made casting baits under the raft from upstream absolutely impossible. In fact the only option was to cast a bait as far under as you dared from the side and then try and tempt the residents out slowly by trickling hemp under it from above. 

On this occasion I had crept into position being very careful to keep myself well hidden behind a small mound fringed with tall dry tufts of grass. I had for once made the perfect cast first time and after being cramped up against the trunk of a tree for two or more hours my gradual baiting had finally tempted a few fish to the edge of the shadows just under the mat where my hook bait lay visible on the bottom on a fantastic gravel run. 

Just as I moved back to my position after again peering through the grass, another angler very considerately crawled up behind me to ask how it was going. Whispering back to him I explained that they were just starting to come out to play and I had seen at least two good fish move out and then back in again. Both of us sat transfixed by the tip of my rod as it began to tremble. Knowing full well what could happen next I readied my hand hovering just over the rod just before it jerked violently over. I was to my knees instantly applying maximum side strain to keep the beast from the snag. With my heart thumping I somehow blurted my belief that it felt like a good one just before the rod sprung back violently as the hook pulled.

I just looked at the river with that forlorn look all we anglers get in that situation and waited for my companion to maybe utter a few words of condolence. But he was silent. Turning round I realised why... He was no longer beside me but was instead lying flat on his back about five feet away in the grass with little birds fluttering round his head and an Adam Ant style red mark straight across the bridge of his nose where my rod had connected with his face. After I helped him up and dusted him off and he stumbled off and downstream cursing me as he went. I didn’t even get the poor blokes name never mind apologise. So if he ever reads this “I am very sorry and I hope it didn’t have any lasting effects”. And if that was not bad enough I never did actually land one of those Barbel from that very special swim.

I hope that warmed you up. And if anyone else has any amusing stories get em posted on your blogs cos we've still got two or months of this freezing weather left and we could all do with a chuckle.

Remembering a good friend

Growing up in a non angling family left me rather short of influential figures in my younger years and as a result anything thing I learnt was glimmed from books or old VHS tapes. On top of that the travelling radius in which I could fish was limited that which I could walk or cycle, as persuading parents to drop you off back then was a no no.
It wasn't until my very end of my teens that two brothers came into my life who would step into the role an angling father would have held: both showed me there was a much larger and varied angling world beyond my own; both had a passionate love of the Norfolk broads having spent a large proportion of their life fishing amongst it's reed line banks. And this was something they have passed onto me. I don't believe there has ever been a single time when I had spoken to ether Richard or John when they failed to show interest in what I have been up to or what I have caught.

I have spent countless days cruising the broads with Richard and whenever we were looking for a mooring he would always be thinking of where we could get some good glides for us to trot down.
John on the other hand would pick me up early in the morning and transport me off to Northamptonshire to fish a small syndicate water he was a member of, that had a astounding stock of powerful and stunning carp. which I would go at like a kid in a candy shop until I was practically falling asleep sitting up. I once returned the favour and took John to a friend of mines secluded lake where he hooked what at first we thought was a small carp. Which as always morphed into something else in the net. Only thing was it turned out to be the single biggest chub I have ever seen. God I wished we had weighed it! cos I've seen a few six pounders and this thing made them look like tiddlers. But John just smiled and slipped it back.

Sadly John passed away some years ago suddenly which shocked us all. Happily I remember all the times we spent together doing what we both loved so much. But as always I still wish we could have fished just one last time with him.

John Bibb