Cotswolds Roach — The Seeking Wind

Once or twice a year we make a journey to the Cotswolds to pit our wits against the coldest fishery in all England. I think we've returned six or seven times now. The experience has never been an all out pleasure, let me tell you. And it's nothing to do with the fishery itself which is as spick and span as you'd ever like and stocked with a nice balance of species (and some of them desirable specimens if you know what to go at). But is to do with the peculiar location of it. 

You'll think the day pleasant enough as you close the front door and believe yourself well dressed for it. That's when you must turn on your heels and go back indoors. Are you wearing thermal undergarments? A turtle necked jumper and jeans? A heavy tweed jacket? That's not nearly enough, I'm afraid.

Though I'd dressed in what I consider ample protection for autumn fishing elsewhere, I packed a spare jumper yesterday morning well aware that where we were going I'd almost certainly require it at some point during the day. That point arrived just as soon as I'd dropped the tackle into my first choice of swim...

Here we go again. 

Martin tends not to move once settled in his first choice. In fact I cannot remember him ever changing his peg without being forced off by circumstance in all the time I've known him, which is getting on for a decade now. He's fishing two pegs to my left. About ten minutes after our first casts I hear him call "fish on...", and then there's this sickening splintering 'crack!' followed by, "Oh, Shit!".

His 'circumstance' has arrived.

Lucky for us that I have my roach pole with me because without it we'd be going home far earlier than expected.

I have ants in my denim pants. I'll move two or three times in any given session. But fishing this venue I'll change six or seven times to find my fish because their location is determined by an all important factor and I think that never more so than with our target species. For some reason those roach that live in lakes (and the big ones especially) do seem to like a bit of undertow. 

We have the wind on our backs. Though the water is choppy over the far bank it's quite calm out front but we have undertow flowing left to right to contend with. Martin fishing worm and caster fares well with an opening specimen of 1lb 6oz between plenty of pound-plus perch. But my maggots fail to raise a bite in the first two hours and so I move round the lake a little way and fish worm myself. 

It seems a good move. I do get a respectable roach there and plenty of good sized perch too but the swim dies off and does not seem to be entering recovery any time soon so I move again. More in order to seek shelter from the persistent wind than to actually find roach, I might add. I discover a peg tucked behind a bush that offers what my chilled body requires.

However, there's no denying that I'm going to have to move again because there's just small perch in front of me and too many carp splashing about for comfort. When I hook and bank a small example I decide that either I go to a different lake on the complex where I know there's a sheltered spot and there catch small tench, or, I go back where I started, endure the wind, and pursue big roach with a couple of handfuls of scrounged caster.  

Passing Martin on the way round I see him playing a carp. Looks like the same one I'd just returned a hundred yards away. I think two carp arriving so close together an ominous sign. Last time I fished caster at this venue I caught six or seven roach over a pound in a couple of hours only to have carp invade the swim around 2pm and wreck it. It's 2pm now. Nevertheless, an all out caster attack is what I plan and what I'll execute regardless.

This next and final choice of swim is a more a matter of instinct than anything else. Dropping the tackle on the grass I walk past a dozen options and back again before deciding that I really am drawn to one in particular. It smells ever so 'roachy' for no particular reason that I can fathom because it smells just as much of nothing peculiar as the rest...

However, once summoned for his spaniel-like nose, the judgement of my primal angler must be obeyed. 

Fifty or so of the wonder pupae are broadcast just where near shelf slopes away to deeper water. Then I practise the 'little and often' method — feeding accurately over the float with just a pinch of three or four every few minutes. It soon works its magic but the worm rig must be amended because the sudden sharp dips are impossible to hit. At least I know that I have found roach. Perch would just drag the bait off and produce clear sail away bites.

The shotting pattern is radically altered to allow a single dark floating caster to sink through the last twelve inches by weight of the hook alone and with just one small tell-tale shot above. All the bulk bar one left at half-depth are bunched under the float. This has the appreciable effect of slowing bites down. Finally I hook what I know must be a roach. At just over a pound in weight I think it a promising start. 

The trouble with caster is that the slow fall of free offerings brings roach up in the water. They will then attack the shot and produce many false bites that are almost indistinguishable from real ones. I guess its just something that has to be put up with. Roach never do get any easier. Even when caster drives them crazy they'll suck them in, crush them, and spit them out in the blink of an eye. And I'm getting shelled almost every bite.

So I thread them up the shank of the hook. 

'Clonk!' 

Whatever this is — it's worth keeping.

It's not a carp and I don't think it's a perch either...

"Perhaps it's a bream?".

And I tell myself that's what it must be even when I see a broad green back emerge. 

Just as well. I might have made a terrible blunder at the net had it flashed a bright silver flank...

Calling Martin over I put the fish back in the water for safe keeping — but not before checking the meshes for large holes!

A truly beautiful young thing without a scale out of place. I tell myself against all reason that she might run close on two-pounds because disappointment is so often the roach angler's lot and prudence his best friend. But my other best friend arrives in an incautious frame of mind and he declares it "a good 'two and a half ' any day of the week" at first sight! 

Only the one way to find out...

The pointer of my trusty 4lb Salters bought eight years ago after a very near miss with and expressly for the purpose of weighing my future 'fish of a lifetime', had never registered better than 6 ounces under in all that time... 

At long last it plain sails past the two-pound mark and settles rock steady at three-ounces in excess. 

The sun shone upon the lake for the first time in the whole of the day. The seeking wind petered out and the air warmed. A coincidental lull in the weather. 

I thought it remarkable how very impressive roach of such size are when taken out of their natural element but how very slight they seem on their return. She was as long as my forearm and extended hand to the tip of my middle finger. Yet back in the water such measurements seemed insignificant and tawdry. In a few seconds she was gone.

I'll admit I was quite saddened by her dignified vanishing because as preposterous as it may sound... 

I'd felt the overwhelming desire to take her home.