Monster Roach on the Bristol Avon

Big Roach are perhaps considered the hardest of all species to catch, and by big Roach, I mean anything over the 2lb barrier, and the Bristol Avon is no exception!

I know several very good anglers who have never caught a Roach over 2lb from the BA and not for the want of trying. One guy I know spend several weeks in a row after the species resulting in a few near to the 2lb mark but not quite making it.

One venue, very close to where I live happens to contain this very rare species, one shoal I know of contains perhaps 6-8 2lb + roach and two of them more like 3lb!!! These really are monsters, legendary fish that we hear of but are seen once in a lifetime.

Now last season (2010-2011) resulted in 13 roach all over 1lb, these were all caught on a rather suprising choice of bait... Halibut Pellet. This went on from June through to September, after this the Roach on this stretch seem to become invisble, completely dissappearing from sight until the following June. As it happens, this season started for me in July as unfortunatley I had to miss it whilst on Holiday in Florida... I have a hard life don't I ; )

The season started for me on a high, two casts and two wonderful fish. A 7lb 9oz Barbel and 5lb 4oz Chub in consecutive casts on the same Halibut pellet!!!

Not a bad start by all acounts, in fact the Chub became a new PB for me so I was over the moon!!! I continued to fish for the following couple of weeks somewhat sporadically catching Barbel and Chub to to 7lb+ and 4lb+ accordingly. I wasn't prepared for the fish I was about to catch however, smashing my PB and catching a fish I never thought possible in my wildest dreams.

It was my girlfriend Mandy that persuaded me to head to my local river, July 9th 2011 to be precise, a lovely summers day without a cloud in the sky. I packed the car with all the neccessities, rod kitted up, landing net, food and drink, and my camera - just in case...

I began fishing one of my usual swims, the same swim that I had caught the Barbel and Chub mentioned earlier. I set up, cast out my bait just under an over hanging tree and then chucked a couple of free offerings on top of it; 30 minutes went by and I had a wrap around. After a short but spirited fight I scooped out an impressive Chub, perhaps 4lb. As lovely as these fish are to see, they in all honesty destroy the swim for up to a couple of hours with their thrashing so it was time to move on.

I had scaled my tactics down, lighter line, a very small ledger weight and a small halibut pellet. I was after a Roach, one of the big ones that I had spotted right at the beginning of the season. I began by trying a swim just before where they reside, hoping that trickling in a few micro pellets would pull the bigger ones upstream and away from the smaller "nuisance" fish. After an hour I started getting anxious, I started questioning whether I was in the right swim. My girlfriend Mandy made the decision for me, "if it doesn't feel right then it it probably isn't right, move swim". I followed her "expert" advice and moved swims with immediate effect.

The swim I moved to wasn't known for producing remarkable Roach, but in all honesty the entire stretch wasn't, it seemed like I had this shoal of monsters to myself and I couldn't wait to catch one!!! I once again cast out, a light under hand cast to my left using the world famous Wallis Cast with my beautiful Allcocks Aerial. As the bait went in a couple more offerings were chucked around it in the hope of pulling in a couple of the members of the Monster Roach Shoal. It must only have been 20 minutes of the bait going in the water that I got a twitch on the end of my fishing rod, it changed from a twitch to a tug and all too soon a wrap around. Now for a Roach to take a rod round would for one be rare but two perhaps suggest it may be one of the Monsters (or a nuisance Barbel/Chub). I struck and felt resistance, a nice steady resistance, then a tell tale roach tug, juttering (is this a word?) through the water, it was then that I caught a glimpse of her. I said to Mandy WOW. This is the fish I have been after since I was a little boy, I was attached to a 2lb Roach. It was then that I backed off. The clutch was off and the fish would be given the freedom to tire itself out. I wasn't going to loose this through a hook pull as big Roach are synonymous for doing, often at the net!!!

It slowly tired itself, Mandy passed me the net which was now rested in the water. It slid over the net beautifully. I just shouted "YES, I have done it!!!" Although Mandy was no angler, she could understand my passion for specimen hunting and she was as happy for me as a girlfriend that gets dragged along to fishing can be...

Scales were readied and the net was zeroed for the weighing of this beautiful fish. I lifted and the scales settled on 2lb 5oz, a new PB and 3/4lb  bigger than my previous PB. I was a lucky man and I had my girlfriend to share my joy with. She took some wonderful pictures for me which were published in the Angling Times the following week:

http://www.gofishing.co.uk/Angling-Times/HomepageArticles/Match-Fishing-News/Catch-Reports/Monster-roach-taken-on-barbel-gear/

A proud moment for me and I recently found out that this Roach was one of the biggest Roach to come from the stretch in question on the Bristol Avon and perhaps the biggest! So my advice that I would give to you is to try something a bit different. Pellets are very often overlooked for smaller species such as Roach but they have aquired a taste for such baits as they are used consistantly day in and day out for the larger resident species such as Chub and Barbel. As long as baits and tackle are scaled down and the your bait is well presented there is no reason why you can't do the same as me. Now for the 3lber...

Tight Lines!!! 



The River Prince

I could write for chapters about the River Prince also known by some as the Barbel. A powerful, golden and elusive fish and most certainly one of my favourite fish. It wasn’t until very recently that I began capturing Barbel consistently, by constantly I mean fifteen to twenty Barbel in a season. Before this I was lucky to capture one!

It wasn’t that I wasn’t fishing the right places, to be fair it is certainly tougher to catch a barbel now than it was five years ago. It was simply poor judgement, wrong bait choice and ignorantly, poor presentation.

I have been fortunate enough to have fished alongside some very good anglers, in particular a good friend Martin Hooper. He has opened a whole new door for me and my fishing. He has taught me that it’s not about putting your bait in the water but working out where the fish are at that specific time. The Bristol Avon is synonymously, weedy water but at the same time fairly shallow and clear. This enables the angler to spot the fish and get them “on the feed” by throwing in a few offerings.

Although I caught my biggest Barbel on Luncheon meat I find my staple bait to be Dynamite Marine Halibut Pellets. I find using a 10-14mm on a hair-rig and throwing a mix of 4mm, 6mm and couple of 14mm pellets is my most successful approach. I very rarely throw in more than a handful and it frustrates me to watch other anglers throw in kilos of the stuff. It seems obvious science, especially on small water such as the Bristol Avon that throwing in tons of bait might catch you one fish but after that they will be stuffed to the gill plates. This can be the case not for just those few hours but lead to the fish not feeding for several days!!!

Enough of the facts and figures and onto a Barbel fishing story.

My season till now had been great, my first full season and I was on 18 Barbel by January. I had never expected this many beyond my wildest expectations. I had up to this session had 4-5 night sessions on the BA and had located the perfect spot for me and my brother to plonk ourselves down and into the night.

We arrived at the desired spot for around 6:30PM

Pin pointed our spots and placed our baits carefully in position. As I mentioned earlier I tend to use Pellets, in this case though I was using Luncheon meat laced with Garlic. The reason for this was for once reason; flood water conditions. The river was up a good 6-7 foot and belting through. It is important to use a fairly significant lead weight of at least 2-3oz.

Barbel in these conditions just love smelly baits so garlic meat made complete sense. Hardly 10 minutes had gone before my Allcocks registered a screaming run which ended in me pulling out of the fish. Barbel!

 It was very chilly so I was well wrapped and was very thankful for the luscious khaki green thick woollen scarf that my beautiful girlfriend had knitted me. Brrr.

After a re cast and a couple more chunk sof meat thrown out I sat back and was sure I was finally going to catch a Barbel. Weirdly my brother predicted that in the next minute he would catch a double figure Barbel and suddenly SLAM, my rod went round.

My rod was doubled over, but there was no big run which I normally would expect from a Barbel. I had been told that a big one just sits and holds hard, using the flow of the river to its advantage. Could it be one of those mythical double figured fish? I gained a bit every now and again but the rod stayed doubled while the hook held firm. The fish suddenly moved towards the surface and I caught a glimpse of what looked like a big fish. It dived back down again and this time screamed off. I tried not to give it an inch but I was struggling. It was a cat and mouse fight for another minute and then the fish seemed to lose the fight. My brother readied the net and he scooped my prize from the water. He lifted the net and said DOUBLE. Could I finally have caught my first ever double figured barbel. A weigh in was required. After zeroing the scales, my brother lifted the net containing potentially my PB. It went 10lb 8oz. I was ecstatic!!!

The rest of the night was a blur. I picked up a celebratory cheese burger from McDonalds on the way back through and slept well that night.

Perch on the Bristol Avon

I have always had a thing for Perch as discussed earlier. They are in my eyes the most attractive of species and as Richard Walker once said the biggest of all fish in appearance. Even a 1lb Perch looks big, and when they get to 2lb and above they really begin to look spectacular. They develop a hump on their back and look both beautiful but threatening at the same time.

Living in Wiltshire I am surrounded by both lakes and rivers and perhaps all of them contain Perch; untapped specimen Perch potential surrounded me. It wasn’t till I read Chris Yates’ How to Catch Fish that I began to hunt down the elusive monster Perch. He described them beautifully…”with its vivid colours, its striking markings and its superbly bristling demeanour, can send an otherwise dull angler into raptures. The caught my eye and since then I have landed dozens over 1lb and more recently several over 2lb.

After heading over to my girlfriend Mandy’s house I got into a conversation with her father, a keen match man. We began discussing the differences between specimen anglers, match men like himself and the average pleasure angler. We then got onto Perch when John told me that he had once witnessed our clubs record Perch of a colossal 5lb 4oz. At this stage I was plain shocked, I didn’t believe our river held 4lbers; let alone 5lb and above!!! More was to come however. He once to a friend out for his first fishing session where he duly landed a perch which John believed to be a British record; in appearance it was much bigger than the 5lb 40zer he had witnessed. Unfortunately they had no scales and the guy that had caught the Perch didn’t even know what species he had just caught. Quite painful for me to hear!!!

We then got onto locations and the town stretch come up, a place John regularly fishes in matches and when the Roach aren’t feeding he often chucks in a handful of worms and waits for the stripeys to come in. He said bags of 4-5 Perch to 10lb are quite common. That sounded like an average of 2lb a Perch. As soon as I heard this I was itching to cast bait into the river. I then had the offer of a free bag of worms; ten minutes later and I was heading off to river with Mandy in tow.

Mandy got bored fairly quickly and headed into town. I chucked several handfuls of chopped worms in and sat in anticipation. The float looked quite delightful sitting amongst some old leaves and a perfect reflection sat in front of it. A young lad walked over the bridge with his Dad and they stopped and watched me sitting heron like; “what’s he doing Daddy”, “He’s fishing Son”. Seconds later the float bobbed and sailed away and the centre pin reel began to tick. I struck and felt a tug back, could it be a Perch I began thinking. It held deep, and then I saw a flash of silver, by now the young lad and his Dad were behind me watching me battle with this monster. I landed the fish, a Chub of perhaps… 1lb. “can I touch the fish” shouted the boy, “I’ll show you in the net” I told him. By the sounds of it he wanted to start fishing just from witnessing this spectacle. Hopefully I have hooked another fully paid up member of the angler association.

Next minute I heard someone over my shoulder “alright”, I turned and in Mandy’s hand was the most welcoming of gifts in such cold conditions; a cup of Coffee. I grabbed it from her grasp in seconds and began devouring its contents as if I hadn’t drunk anything for days. Pure magic. It then came up that Mandy had never actually witnessed me catch a fish either she was pain unlucky or I had be lying to her about catching anything at all. I began assuring that I had actually caught something when the float stirred. It started moving across the surface but refused to dip under. I was confident this was a Perch, unsure of whether to fully take down the suspicious looking juicy worm. STRIKE. I didn’t let it think. The rod arched round and I was into what felt like a very good fish. By now Mandy had her camera taking action shots at every opportunity and witnessing her first “fish fight”. Coincidentally the same young lad were just going back home as I was in mid battle. Perhaps a good omen. The fish held deep and slowly I worker it to the surface. Stripes. It was definitely a Perch, perhaps a PB? Mandy passed me the landing net and I scooped up my prize. It was a deep bodied, thick set and perfectly proportioned Perch. It looked all of 2 1/2lbs. I rested it back in the river and fetched my scales and sling. All zeroed I placed the perch into the sling and lifted the scales. Past 2lbs but only by 3oz. It settled on 2lb 3oz, My PB River Perch but not my new PB. Later on in the year this fish would certainly reach 3lb; when full of spawn. I let it rest then released it. Swoosh and old stripey disappeared into the depths. I sat back, looked up to Mandy and gave her a cheeky wink and smile; “told you I can catch fish”. I fished on for perhaps another 20 minutes and then decided it was time to head back; brrrrrrrrrrrr. Winter was certainly upon us. Tea time.