Roach Reflections

[DaceAce]

Still busy! On this freezing cold day I've made another Roach Reflections video. Here's Part 22 which is about thoughts on trotting rigs. Enjoy!

[Duebel]

That really got me thinking. Can't wait to try out, what I've just learned! Thank you, Mark!

[DaceAce]

Maybe we'll be able to get out on the bank next week? In the meantime here's Part 23:

[Liphook]

More interesting stuff Mark I'm always thinking about how the hook and last few of inches of any tackle are positioned and perceived by our targets. This has perhaps been bolstered by my long time fascination with fishing the fly for fish of all species. Swinging a fly downstream for salmon in England these days certainly gives a man plenty of time for thinking but ours is the contemplative sport after all So here's a few of my thoughts and observations....

The flow of water can be very laminar, vary greatly within the water column and is subjected to great variation in its path downstream. Our perception of currents from looking down from above the surface and the effects on tackle and particularly the hook are not always borne out when observed by snorkeling and following a cast or trot along its length. A colleague and I experimented with fly, nymph, spinner, plug, rolling lead, feeder and various float tackles in high summer over a period of setled low flows and clear water. We learned a great deal and were quite surprised at how our perceptions as life long anglers were in some cases quite wrong! I got serious sunburn on my bald spot and on the areas where the wetsuit met exposed skin but that's another story....
We used stick floats shotted shirt button style, a range of avon and bolognese floats to 6g, a range of Topper Haskin crow quil avon and giant wire stemmed floats to 30g and pike/sea floats carrying up to 90g of lead. Tethering a bait to hook and tackle or a fly to line and leader changes the reality of how it travels tremendously. Experiment showed that only if holding a float completely at a stop with surprisingly heavy shotting, and then allowing the float to travel very slowly by holding back hard, can even an unbaited hook be expected to travel downstream in front of the tackle on the expected line and depth in anything remotely like the J shaped curve of those many diagrams. More often it's skewed off to one side and/or the bulk and tell tale shot is ahead of the float but the hook is not where expected! If there's much line between the bulk to the tell tale and on then to the hook, or those shot are not heavy enough, then our hook can be wandering well above the expected depth and/or way off to one side. Allow the same set up to run through at the rivers pace and the hook behaves very differently again as it and the rest of the tackle are variously pushed pulled/dragged down river. Add a bait and that changes everything - travel and movement, reaction to the micro currents and vortices etc created by river bed topography, etc. This altered depending on bait hydrodynamics in the form of size, shape, density/buoyancy etc as well as movement eg lively lob worms could add a mad dance under their own propulsion.
There can be a surprising amount of windmilling, spinning and swirling of lighter baits like corn, caster, maggot and bread and there's plenty of stop/ start stuttering on top of that - all whilst the float moves steadily downstream as observed by the angler.

Is this why we find certain 'hotpot' areas in swims - as much because right there and for that length our presentation becomes acceptable or more in line with the flow of loose feed as much as any other factor?

There's another chapter to all of this and that's the behaviour of the fish in the way of resting, feeding, shoaling, competitive vs defensive etc ...maybe later on that as I've developed square eyes!

I expect Tim Troydog may have some interesting experiences on this having spent time diving in rivers....

Thanks for the videos and information Mark. Keep up the good work

[Troydog]

Thank you again Mark. An absolutely brilliant series of videos. I’ll probably go back and watch them all again; you are talking about the very subject that I am spending most of my time thinking about......

[Troydog]

I posted my comment above Alistair, before reading your post. But yes it is all fascinating stuff for those like us and, for example, Captain Parker with his underwater telescope!! As we sit here, waiting for the Atlantic low to push the anticyclone out of the way, I wonder what water conditions we will have to deal with in the next month or so?
I’ve recently been engrossed in fishing some high water swims for roach. I use my 11 foot wand with a 10 gram feeder to start the session, usually more or less on the inside, and if I catch a roach or two, its straight onto the sliding float. It can be ten to fifteen feet deep, but if they are feeding on the feeder, they MUST be catchable on the float.
And that is where the intrigue begins, because sometimes I simply can’t catch them!! I’m focussing on swims where I have caught big roach before; I’m adjusting shotting, bulk weight, depth, even float size to try and get it right. Sometimes, even after holding back hard and watching the float like a hawk, I swear that it hasn’t moved, but I reel in two squashed maggots or two shelled casters. Ha! I laugh at myself, shall I change down to an 18 and a single red maggot?
Now Alistair I will give your post above some more thought before replying, but right now I’m off walking downriver with a bag (for litter) and some tools for gardening a few swims ready for the last few weeks.....

[Ally]

Generally find fishing hard on bottom better than floatfishing in winter. Ive trotted biteless for ages, switched to leger and got a bite every cast.

[Troydog]

Very interesting results of your studies Alistair. I had no idea that an unbaited hook, fished as you describe, could be so offline. And then with a bait on the hook, its behaviour is even more erratic. This would explain why it is so hard to detect some bites in the high water swims I choose to fish. Some of these swims have turbulence, current swings, boiling and even no movement at all for a few seconds, on the surface. So I have no idea what is going on twelve foot under. Maybe it calls for a much heavier dropper shot, like an AA?
I’ve read your post several times now Alistair, there is so much to think about in it, I’ll have to save it.

[Liphook]

I had hoped it would provoke thought Tim I'm certainly not proclaiming to be in any way an expert, but really do look forward to further discussion and the experiences and theories of others. I find it all fascinating to be honest. Perhaps it's for another thread rather than hijacking Marks? I'll let you chaps decide

[DaceAce]

While I attempt to create a decent video of my session yesterday on the Stour here's Roach Reflections Part 24 to be going on with. It's about useful line sprays and treatments: