River Roding

[Bigoll]

I went for a rove on the Roding this afternoon. The river was clearer than it was last week but around the same depth. The usual shoal of small chub mixed with minnows and gudgeon was in the same place, but the shoal of bigger chub was nowhere to be found. On chatting to a couple of chaps who were raking weed from Roding Valley Lake it seems that a few Poles were caught during the week taking a number of chub from that stretch; sadly they'd been killed so could not be returned. My mind flashed back to last week and the Poles who'd been interested in the chub and it saddened me to think that my fishing might have inspired them or others to such a selfish and pointless act.

Anyway, I stayed for a while having a good look and spotted one big-ish chub cruising around under some branches. I flicked a hook to it but it ignored it completely - no doubt it's wiser since its friends disappeared. As there wasn't much happening, I decided to leave and explore elsewhere. There were a few likely looking swims but no clear sight of fish (except the ever-present minnows) so I flicked 4 red maggot on a size 10 into a deep, slow, feature-rich pool. After about a minute, the float slid under and I struck into the first of what would be 8 perch from that spot!

Perch No.1:


Some of the other perch in no particular order:










In the middle of all the perch action came a PB gudgeon! God knows what it was doing hanging around in perch central:



I thought that 8 was enough and wanted to let the swim rest, so I had another rove down stream, checking swims as I went past and testing a couple with a cast. Nothing much was showing until I got to the end of my walk and what I saw there made me swear out loud in surprise - cruising along near an overhanging tree was a pair of the largest chub I've ever seen! They must have been in the 7-9 pound and 3 feet long; I was dumbstruck for a moment before realising I should be baiting up and having a crack. By the time I was ready, the fish had gone, so I moved along in the direction they'd been heading in and found them again. Unluckily for me, they decided to head deep under a bushy overhang, making a cast all but impossible. I'll be back for them one day soon, with a bigger rod.....

John - the advice from me would be travel light and have a good old explore. The swims are there and the fish are in them; a tub of red maggots seems to do the trick, using them on size 10s slung around a foot under a medium 1.5g waggler.

[Mark]

Very nice Bigoll, my first ever fish the perch some 40+ years ago. :thumb:

[Bigoll]

Went for another session today after my mate heard of the perch haul. Visiting the same swim plus two new ones, we bagged 17 perch including PBs for the both of us, 5 small chub, a large gudgeon and a bucket full of minnows; a cracking session by any measure! The only downside was not seeing the massive chub again, despite hunting for them, but they're out there somewhere...

[Julian]

Great photos, great fish, perch always are :thumb:

[Tench Dreamer]

That river is calling me....Ta for the tips chaps. Might not be till early autumn though

[Ljm183]

I went for a rove on the Roding this afternoon, starting with a few swims up from the David Lloyd. The river was clearer than it was last week but around the same depth. The usual shoal of small chub mixed with minnows and gudgeon was in the same place, but the shoal of bigger chub was nowhere to be found. On chatting to a couple of chaps who were raking weed from Roding Valley Lake it seems that a few Poles were caught during the week taking a number of chub from that stretch; sadly they'd been killed so could not be returned. My mind flashed back to last week and the Poles who'd been interested in the chub and it saddened me to think that my fishing might have inspired them or others to such a selfish and pointless act

The evidence found on the bank of the Roding at DL

[Ljm183]

That river is calling me....Ta for the tips chaps. Might not be till early autumn though

Looks good now John L

[Andrew Banham]

ljm 3rd pic down looks like the upper roding instead of the middle reaches. have not been fishing the roding until we get some more rain. every coarse fish is edible and if the fish are very small there taken aswel for soup. i have sent e-mails to several eastern european embassy,s and have never had a reply. i suggest anyone else concearned do the same at least it wont look like one english angler moaning about nothing.

[Bigoll]

The problem is that it's perfectly legal for any angler to take up to 15 fish of certain species in any one day (size limits and permission of the landowner apply), which seems absolutely insane to me. Of course, the other problem is that nobody patrols the rivers to check what people are doing.

I'm still all for sharing fishing info in forums but I'm going to be more selective with what I publish from now on as you never know who's reading! Suffice it to say that I explored a new section of the Roding today and found 3 pockets of very large chub. People have fished it before but not many and not often by the look of it. I managed to catch what I believe to be a fish around 7 pounds in weight; that assumption down to the fact that my 6 pound line snapped when I raised the fish slightly to net it from a steep section of bank. I got it in the net but the handle wasn't strong enough to lift it at the angle needed to raise it up the bank. I scrabbled down the bank to get a better grip but slipped and dropped the net back into the water, allowing what was the largest chub I've ever caught - by a mile - to swim away. I was gutted! It was perhaps 2 feet in length and a beautiful bronze colour changing to silver underneath; an absolute stunner.

Mind you, a fish I spotted further along was absolutely enormous and I've a suspicion I saw a barbel too, though it could have been a particularly streamlined chub......I'll be back to see if I can catch any of them another day soon. I also saw a mink as it emerged on the opposite bank, observed me for a moment and then flowed away along the bank into a reed bed.

The 3 pockets of chub I discovered were all very easily spooked, with even my soft footsteps sending them dashing for cover beneath weed rafts or low hanging bushes. Any advice on how to tempt them out or is it just a waiting game? I think I just lucked into the 7 pounder by being in the right place at the right time!

[Andrew Banham]

big oll. big chubb can look like carp but there is no mistaking barbel. after finding some upstream of stanford rivers the EA stocked fingerlings all along the river so who knows. have you tried a used shotgun cartridge to get under rafts etc? aradite a swivel in the metal end add a little weight and this can be floated to the bush/raft and tightened the line the cartridge will tilt and fill with water and sink under the raft fished as a running ledger caught me loads of fish. you need a flow and i used to freeline but the fish were swallowing the hook. if mink are present then otters are not as they kill mink. i have caught one in a trap and the farmer at stanford rivers has caught over 30. if the mink start disappearing i,ll be real careful as its 6 months prison and/or £5000 fine if you kill a otter. i think they would starve on the roding unless they eat crayfish.