After such a long trip on Tuesday, I wanted to fish a bit closer to home. So Geoff, Kevin and I decided to pay a visit to Longshaw Farm, near Herne. We have fished it many, many times in the past. It is reputed to hold some very big roach. We can certainly vouch for it holding large shoals of roach, as we have caught quite literally hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of roach from here. You tend to get quite a few around the 8oz – 1lb mark, with a few pound plus fish thrown in for good measure.
Today, the water had a rather unusual green tinge to it. The water was also very cold. We settled in to a few likely looking spots and started fishing. After about an hour of struggling I decided to move to a slightly deeper spot. I also changed from a 16 hook to 3lb hooklink to an 18 to 2lb. This seemed to help. I fished a single maggot and a small insert waggler. I kept a trickle of bait going in but that didn’t seem to help. So after that I would put in some hemp and maggots every few casts.
I started picking up fish almost immediately, albeit fairly small ones in the 2-3oz bracket. By the end of the day I had managed about 70 roach with a few nettable ones to maybe 12oz. I also had a couple of bream to about 3lb 8oz. Meanwhile Kevin was having a similar sort of day. His biggest roach was probably a pound with a few other reasonable fish. Geoff on the other hand seemed to find the carp. I think he ended up with 5 to about 7lbs and he had the biggest roach of the day at 1lb 5oz. Sadly though there was a casualty of war, as during a fight with a carp of around 4lbs, the top section of his rod snapped clean off! I’m sure when he talk to the manufacturer they will get it replaced asap.
All in all not a bad day. Certainly not ones of Longshaw’s better ones though. We normally get a lot more fish with a better average size. No doubt we’ll be back at some point for another bash at those big roach.
The River Angler 