Wintle’s World of Angling – Summer River Roach

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.

Sunset on the Frome

This summer has seen some topsy turvey conditions, and finding an opportunity to catch a few roach from a river has been harder than ever. Heatwaves, gales, torrential rain, all the conditions that you don’t want. But, somehow, I’ve fitted in a couple of sessions on my local rivers and found a few roach on the float.

In these days of hair-rigged pellets, and heavy lines and rods, it’s good to know that you can still use the true roach gear with its finesse and subtlety, and make it work. It was time to dig out a match rod, 2lb line, delicately shotted floats and fine wire hooks.

Tare Fishing on the Stour
But first, I needed to find some roach. Last summer I had some good sport on the tidal Stour near Christchurch fishing caster, hemp and tares. All I required was a calm day as this stretch is exposed to strong westerly winds that can make bait presentation a nightmare. Fortunately, at the end of July, a fine calm Saturday dawned. I checked the tide table, and found that the tide would be high in late morning and then run out all afternoon. Last year I caught on a mixture of baits; this time around, I wanted to see whether persisting with tares would work.

I arrived on the river bank around eleven o’clock; the river was near the top of the tide and there’s barely a breeze to ripple the surface. I’d broken a promise to myself not to take the kitchen sink with me, and had taken a platform to set up in the margins for my box. I took all my pole gear, as there was a possibility that the roach would come within pole range. But as I was setting up, I noticed that the beds of eel grass extended out a long way; no problem fishing over them but it meant that the pole was likely to be a non starter as the best line to fish would now be down the middle of the river, twenty yards out, and therefore out of pole range. Instead of a pole, I set up a match rod; coupled with a fixed-spool reel loaded with 2lb Maxima and waggler float. As I was starting with caster as bait, I locked the float with 3 AAA, with a bunch of five no. 4 shot eighteen inches from the size 18 hook and two no. 8 droppers on the hook length.

Roach from the Frome

There was about six feet of water out in the middle. I began feeding plenty of hemp, a good handful every cast, with four or five tares mixed in. Every third cast I fed some casters; once there was evidence of roach starting to feed, my intention was to cut out the casters and fish a tare on the hook. There are plenty of tiddlers along this part of the river and lots of sharp bites soon followed. I started to hit one or two; little dace of half an ounce rather than bleak, and before too long I had my first roach, little fish of a couple of ounces, and for half an hour or so I had a few more. But after an hour of flowing steadily, and dropping perhaps three inches the flow slackened, and the regular roach bites were replaced once again by little dace as the tide began to rise. It was that local phenomenon known as the half tide where we get an extra lift half way through each tidal cycle; it’s short-lived and doesn’t come up very far but it can interrupt sport. So it was during this session. The tide came up about six inches in the space of about forty minutes before starting its final run off.

The steady pace of the run off encouraged the roach to feed more confidently. I wondered if a top and bottom float might improve my bait presentation, as I would be able to hold back the float. I changed the waggler float for a stick float taking 4 no. 4 shot, shotting it with strung out no. 8 shot, and also changing up to a size 16 fine wire hook. I was getting enough bites on tares to stick with them from this point onwards. As well as roach, I had some small silver bream and dace on tares. The stick float was an improvement. I dotted it down, and held it back slightly. I hit more bites and even picked up a couple of better roach though overall the stamp remained disappointingly small. Eventually the tide dropped too low and the roach retreated to the weedbeds at the end of the swim. It was time to pack up. I hadn’t had a massive bag, perhaps forty fish in all, but it had been interesting fishing. I’d lost one big chub that took caster, and although there were a few pleasure boats about, they hadn’t disturbed the fish too much.

Breadpunch Fishing on the Frome
Just over a week later, I managed to fit in an evening session on a private stretch of the tidal Dorset Frome. The river here is much narrower than the Stour, and the tide has more influence. Though I planned to use the same rod and reel, my whole approach was different. I had the opposite tide, a rising tide that would continue to flow seawards. The Frome is deep here as well, seven feet at low tide that would increase to eleven feet at high water. There were some similarities with the Stour swim; the steady current, the weedy margin and the weed beds at the end of the trot, about twelve yards downstream.

The biggest difference was that I intended to use breadpunch and groundbait. Though I tend to think of this as a winter method, it certainly works in summer and autumn, provided one uses it in the right circumstances. It’s not a great method in fast shallow water in the summer, or where there are lots of minnows and bleak, but given a good depth, some flow and cover in the form of weedbeds, there’s always a chance it will work. With this in mind, I tackled up a six BB crowquill Avon float, bunching the shot two and half feet from the Mustad Canal/Seed size 16. A foot from the hook I pinch on 2 no. 8 shot together as a dropper, with another bunch of 3 no. 8 a foot above this. I mixed up a pound and a half of medium brown crumb, adding a handful of Sensas Gros Gardons to help bind it and get it down before it breaks up.

Roach and silver bream from the Frome

I began by introducing a small ball of groundbait (smaller than a golf ball) every five minutes, and fishing a pellet of bread on the hook. I’d dotted the float right down; many of the bites barely register as the roach often drop back with the bait in their mouths as they take it. This meant that I had to control the float carefully, especially as a skimming breeze was making line control tricky at times; later in the evening, the sea breeze will go.

The first bites were not long in coming; little dace at first then small roach of a couple of ounces. Slowly the swim built up. During the first hour, I also got a few minnows, but as the better fish come in, these should disappear. At first, the sun was still on the water but by 7 o’clock, it had sunk below the far bank willows, leaving the swim in shade. With less light, the better roach start to show, though nothing bigger than half a pound. The dace and roach alternated in feeding, so half a dozen dace would follow a run of three or four roach.

This is truly active fishing; as well as constantly trotting down under tight control, the changing water levels (more so than on the Stour) mean constant adjustments to the float depth. I also had to gauge the amount of feed going in, avoiding the temptation to chuck in too much when bites slow. Patience is the key with roach. The bigger ones often take several hours of steady feeding to overcome their shyness, and so it was on this evening. The last hour, with reducing light levels, saw the roach feed confidently, with the final bonus a splendid sunset on the river, before a marauding jack pike spoilt the swim, and it was time to pack up.

Conclusion
In two sessions, I’ve had some interesting sport yet hardly a net fish. The contrasting methods are two of many that can work for summer roach though the common factor is the finesse, patience and steady, careful feeding that makes the big difference. The extra control afforded by fishing top and bottom has proved essential on both occasions. It’s been a reminder to me that this is fishing that I enjoy, and that I need to sharpen up my technique to regain the skills that seem to be getting rusty. There is little room for compromise with roach fishing like this; keep the tackle fine and sensitive, the feeding little and often, and the results should bear out the effort.

Next week: ‘The Otter – Part One’