I might be wrong but roach seem to be making a bit of a comeback, despite the odds. In particular there are quite a few rivers that seem to be producing good numbers of red-fins including the odd clonker over the last season or two. Good news for us river anglers.
It’s quality roach like this that keeps me coming back for more!
I headed to Hampshire for a spot of chalk stream roaching. There is a good mixture of water here; from deep pools to shallow, gravel runs, and long glides to tackle. We started off in a deep pool that shallowed up and ran off onto fast flowing gravels of just a few inches deep. A large piece of breadflake and a feeder packed with crumb was the tactics of choice. We picked the edge of the crease. Casting needed to be precise, a little off the mark and the roach didn’t want to know. We both managed a couple of nice pound plus roach, quite a few grayling and the odd trout.
We decided to move and I fancied a go on the float. Light tackle was set-up and a spot chosen. The area just below an island offered up a nice long crease to fish. The depth was good; probably 5ft of mainly gravel with the odd spot of weed. A few trots down sorted the depth and just holding back the float slightly allowed the bait to trickle down the run. The swim looked perfect but it does hold a few pike and once a few small roach and dace started to come to the net the pike moved in. Despite this the biggest dace was probably around 10oz and finally the float buried and that tell tale jagging indicated a better roach. After an exciting fight, with a big pike following the roach almost to my feet (I was wading to just below the waist), I finally netted my best roach of the day. At 1lb 7oz it wasn’t headline news but was a belter of a fish. It certainly made my day.
By now it was 2pm and so we decided to head back up to the mill pool. Again targeting a particular area with flake and breadcrumb. More grayling, dace and trout followed but eventually a nice roach fell to my fishing companion’s rod. It was 1lb 10oz and made a nice accompaniment to his earlier fish of 1lb 9oz and several more 1lb+ roach followed that one. I managed to tempt a nice fish of approximately 1lb 4oz. By now the light had faded and it was almost 5.30pm. My quiver tip bent right round and on striking a large roach broke the surface. This was followed by raised and rather excited voices. Things like “please don’t come off” and “don’t go to hard on it”, “Oh God please don’t come off”, “watch out for the weed”, “walk back, walk back” and “come on, come on, get it in the net”!! We both sounded like a couple of excitable school children catching their first ever fish from a local pond.
Eventually the fish was coaxed into the net and hoisted out to the wonderment of our eyes. It looked simply huge. It had a massive frame and we slipped it into a carrier bag to weigh. The scales were zeroed and it was that time. We both looked at this magnificent, pristine roach and both thought it looked 2lb 8oz – 2lb 12oz. Well it didn’t quite live up to those ambitious estimations, however at 2lb 4oz it was a new PB and an absolute minter.
2lb-4oz
My hands were still shaking during the photographing of this magnificent specimen and the smile will last for a very long time. We slipped her back and with a powerful kick of her tail she disappeared back into the dark pool. We carried on for a while but only big sea trout seemed to be present. We had managed to tempt lots of roach with around 10-12 over a pound. Not a bad days fishing really! 🙂
The River Angler 
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