Thames lock cut roach 25.1.16
Entry posted by The Flying Tench
357 views
3-5pm, WT 7DegC
I chose this lock cut to avoid the wind, but found it was in the opposite direction to the forecast, so did prove a slight problem. Plan A was to fish fine for roach (float, single maggot), as in my last blog entry on the lake, though I had a plan B (lobworms for perch.). But this proved unnecessary as first cast I had a nice roach of about 6oz. Then for the first half hour it was almost bite a chuck with quality roach between 6 and 11oz, ten in all averaging 8oz, so that was 5lbs of roach in half an hour! The bites were easy to hit, but hard to see. If in doubt I'd lift the rod tip, and sure enough there was often a roach on the end. I was fishing right under the rod tip, almost like a pole, and using it to stop the float being blown out of the swim!
But the wind was getting up, and was creating tangles with the light float tackle. I decided to switch to breadflake to see if I could catch the monster of the shoal, and couldn't decide whether to persevere with float or switch to ledger. I chose the latter, but was worried that, with the bites being so minimal, they wouldn't register. The actual problem turned out to be different. I used my shaved down super-sensitive quiver tip, but they could still feel it. I was getting pulls of up to 6 inches, but unlike with the float they were very hard to hit. I had just one of about 8oz. So I switched back to float and single maggot, and caught 4 more decent fish, but by now I was getting a bit of trouble from mini-fish. So the finale was to fish breadflake on the float. It felt like a safe bet, as I had a least been getting bites on flake with the ledger, though not with the same frequency as maggot on the float. So the magic hour saw me fishing bread flake, surely the recipe for a biggun! Alas, it was not to be - just one fish of about 6oz. They preferred maggot.
Still my best roach session on the Thames by a long way. 16 fish at a combined weight of about 8lbs on a very blustery day. I was very pleased.
1 Comment
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now