Canal Roach — What Really Matters

When fishing for roach only one weight really matters. Not two-pounds as you may have been led to believe. That target weight is for general anglers who never fish for roach seriously and never will but occasionally might snare a big one by accident. No, one-pound is the target when you fish by design and this rule applies wherever a roach angler might fish, because, if you can't catch pounders there on a regular basis something is seriously wrong with either you, your approach, or the venue. 

Today, for a change, my perennial one-pound target served two purposes. Firstly to determine where I might catch better much later in the year when roach fishing is slightly less tricky than it is by default the whole year round. Not every peg on a canal is a good roach swim. Few are. Secondly, to secure points on the scoreboard and progress up it by degree. I started very late and have some very fine anglers to compete with who I must be in contention with or I'll not sleep soundly...

"Number five, have you got ants in your pants or what? 
Keep still boy, this a year class photo!"

First swim was skimmer central. I had five between four boats in half an hour. The bites were confident   at first, but the mash was then stirred up and bites could not be got straight off the deck so I shallowed-up and fished mid-water where I continued to catch till suddenly the swim died. That's fishing bread in canals for you. When it's terminal, you either move along or go home because once destroyed a bread swim is a very tricky thing to rescue.

I moved two pegs down and decided to fish there without groundbait. It worked well. First fish was a roach of half a pound, the second and third and fourth were blades in the two-ounce range. This was at the very least a roach swim and not a skimmer swim.

They look kindly enough, but are the purest evil...

More boats came through but the lack of groundbait and the scattering of the same throughout the breadth of the cut by propeller wash, seemed to keep fish coming. They were not scurrying off chasing bits of it, I do believe. And there was just the one dollop of white stuff to focus upon, which had my hook in it. 

At last I hit a proper fish, and banked my target for the day. A roach, and a pounder.

Beautiful fish are one-pound roach. They do look large, are very, very handsome, and mean all the right things if better is what you are after. 

Then a pair of voles exited the brambles. Could I get both in frame at the one time? As heck as like...

Very pleased to see them in town, though. But I wasn't so very pleased to see the culprit of the next 'roach' bite...

 I'm just a littleun', innocent, like... I surrender. Spare me!"