The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

went for a spot of roach fishing today and it was a hard day.first it was a flat calm but at least that gave me the benefit of seeing a few fish topping on the surface,the only plus side was at least it was overcast.
I decided only to take the ledgering outfit and straight away I was regretting it.i set up any way and made up some of my bread mash and added a little ground bait,normally a killer for me.
For the first hour all I managed was a few finicky bites and they were few and far between but things looked promising when I managed to hook one of those finicky fish.a nice roach,I didn't bother with the scales as I've had bigger and I was just happy to get the blank off.
Things proceeded the same way for the next two or three hours with the odd fish gracing my net,they were nervous but I couldn't work out why.
I decided they might have been wary of the feed so I decided to start afresh with more bread mash but excluding the ground bait.i fished through yet another long fish less hour and unless I did something different I was in for a very slow day indeed.
I was fishing a one and a half foot hooklink to a size 12 barbless hook,I thought about it and after deliberating for an eternity I decided to ring the changes so on with a two foot hooklink to a size 14 barbless.low and behold the next cast and another roach came in,then another three in quick succession,I cracked it,so I thought.
Obviously there are only so many changes one can make and when fish are as wary as these were sometimes one has to concede but I still had a couple of hours fishing time left and even if I am sitting staring at a motionless rod it's still better than the telly.
I kept at it for a while with absolutely no more bites,not even finicky ones and then it revealed itself,the reason those roach were wary,the reason I only have three strands of hair left and will need to perform a miracle comb over,the reason none of my hard thought tactics interested them.right out in front of me,right in my swim a great big sharp toothed essox appeared on the surface,it's back like a croc.
Well I would have been questioning what the problem had been all night if I hadn't seen it so in a way I was glad I had.
what did I take from this experience,easy,the roach were having a worse day than me.

At least these three nice roach lived to fight another day

Well done Ian, sounds like you had to work hard to put the fish on the bank

Pafpuff wrote:Well done Ian, sounds like you had to work hard to put the fish on the bank

One of those days pafpuff when the fish were on one minute off the next but having that pike stalking them,who can blame them.

Beautiful roach Ian, a good day...

Like you say, far better than looking at the telly....

Brilliant Ian, well done, nice roach.

This roach was caught at the same place I was today,but back in the eighties.3lb4oz of solid muscle.the place is called Strathclyde loch and it sits just off the m74 motorway at the Motherwell junction.i saw some big roach rolling on the surface earlier on in the year,they looked around the two pound mark.sadly the Black Death come in every winter in they're hundreds but it keeps on producing the fish so there must be an awful lot of feeding for them birds.every time I look at that photo I dream a dream.

Cheers guys,hope yous all get some fish on the bank this autumn.by the way Strathclyde loch is a big loch.1 and a half miles long.they use it for watersports during the commonwealth games,when its on here.stocked back in the 70s it has been left to its own devices since.plenty of roach.there are very big carp and bream but they are few and far between,dace,gudgeon,perch,pike and trout.there was even a grayling caught ha.