Autumn Roach Diary Week #1

It's the last week of September, the horse chestnut trees are starting to lose their leaves and misty mornings announce that Autumn has arrived. However, there has been a definite hint of Indian summer about the days with periods of pleasant sunshine and only a gentle breeze ruffling the water's surface. My pursuit of roach this week has taken me out on two sessions, one to Lake 2 and the other  on the Lancaster canal in the Carnforth area.
My first session was a bottom numbing 9 hours at Lake 2. As I take the children to school each day I didn't arrive until around 9.30am and found that my favourite spot (peg 12) was free. Lake 2 is a roughly rectangular lake of between one and two acres. It lies parallel to the M6 northbound carriageway which is the other side of a row of trees and bushes. Only around two thirds of the lake is accessible to fish. If peg 1 is in the bottom right hand corner of the lake peg 12 is about half way down the opposite bank away from the motorway.
The depth varies around the lake. A couple of rod lengths out from the motorway side on pegs 1-6 you have around 6-7 feet of water. I've only fished pegs 1 and 3 on this side but have found roach to be plentiful. Peg 12 is a little different as you have around 10-11 feet of water within a rod length of the bank. This deep water also has a very definite flow that moves from left to right across the swim as a result of the lake being stream fed via a pipe on the northern bank.



Looking across Lake 2 from peg 12 (M6 behind the trees)

 

I have tried fishing at all sorts of depths on this swim and have found the best way to produce consistent bites and pick up decent fish is to fish around six inches or so over depth. If I cast to the left of the swim and allow the float to drift left to right across as the bread slowly sinks it will find a spot where it settles and stops moving. Bites can come at any time during this movement across the swim. The most successful bait is bread, either as pinches of flake or compressed discs but I have also discovered that the roach here will go mad for luncheon meat. It doesn't happen all the time but there have been odd hours where they will bite very freely on it.

So here's the results for this first session:

Roach x13 with the best 13 ounces
Bream x4 up to 2lbs
Bonus unexpected crucian carp of 12 ounces





You never catch more than one of these beauties.
 

Canal session results:

Roach x3 up to10 ounces
Skimmers x 4
Perch x2 ( caught on worms)

I'll give more details about my canal methods and favourite swims in the next update.
The canal roach is my favourite fish this week. A scale perfect, pristine fish that is unlikely to have ever been caught before.



Pristine canal roach of 10oz

Another update in a couple of days. Enjoy your Autumn fishing.

 

 

Club Waters, Canals and small Commercials

I've always liked belonging to an angling club. As a boy in my formative fishing years I was a member of the Forest of Dean Angling Club. At that time it was the only way you got to fish as day tickets and commercials didn't really exist. I currently fish the waters belonging to Kendal and District anglers. We have two still waters and a couple of stretches of the Lancaster canal. One of the still waters is Banks Pond and this year it has blossomed due to the removal of large areas of weed. It's also much easier to get to now due to the construction of a hard track as a result of a wind farm being built nearby. In the past it was always a bit dicey as to whether you would make it across the two fields via a very slippery and muddy farm track.




The wind farm with Banks Pond down in the wooded hollow
 

I have been a frequent visitor this summer and my catches have eclipsed all my previous visits. The cutting back of the weed has really meant that the pond at last lives up to its billing on the club website as a 'terrific water'. Fishing aside it is also a place of wondrous solitude and peace with rhythmic whoosh of the wind turbines and the sounds of sheep and cattle providing the only background noise. There's rarely more than a couple of anglers particularly if you fish during the week as I tend to do. So what of the fish?
Well it has roach, perch, tench, carp, rudd, bream and gudgeon. The water quality is very good and produces common carp that look as though they have been cast in bronze, quite the most beautiful commons I've ever seen. They don't run particularly big- there's plenty around 3lb but boy do they fight.

Around 2lb but what a fighter!

As you can see from the above photograph I've been using an old porcupine quill that I fish attached top and bottom with a couple of AAA shot around six inches from the hook and the depth adjusted so the floats sits in the water at an angle of around 45 degrees to the surface. I call it laying on though I'm not sure if it is actually that. Anyway whatever it's called it works a treat fishing about a rod length out next to the lily pads. This approach has brought numerous carp and tench as well as the odd greedy gudgeon all falling to either sweetcorn, luncheon meat or bread. The bites are great from small ripples appearing around the float to the float sometimes laying flat or classic sail away ones.
For the roach, rudd and perch I've usually fished maggots or casters with a slim antenna float and a small hook and have found the clear water around two lengths out to produce the best catches. Of course gudgeon turn up here too and I do love catching them.

A brace of gudgeon dwarfed by a small roach

I think the thing I've most enjoyed about Banks Pond is the fact that I've fished with no expectations and have tried to tap into the young angler I was once that was happy with any fish he caught. It was Bernard Venables  who described three stages of an angler's evolution. In stage one you just want to catch any fish, as I've described above, stage two you want to catch big fish and finally you progress to stage three where it is the manner of the catch that counts at which point it can become a much more intellectual challenge. Luke Jennings mentions this in his excellent book Blood Knots but goes on to apply it to his quest for urban pike. For me I think all three can apply although I probably spend most of my time wavering between stages two and three as the desire to catch a big roach is never far from my thoughts. That said it's great to give yourself a day off and be happy catching small hard fighting tench or carp or to enjoy the exquisite colouring of a small rudd which nowadays seem to be a rare fish to catch.




No idea why this is orientated like this- a beauty!

As for the canal I 've had a few worthwhile evenings where some roach to around half a pound have graced the bank. However, I seem to have developed an almost uncanny knack for catching bream and have had at least five fish to 2lbs from a variety of swims. These are pretty good fish from the canal but I can't help thinking they are forcing the roach out of the swims. I've tried different approaches to feeding and groundbait but once they arrive there seems little I can do to get the roach back.
My other issue has been that my favourites spot seems to have really gone off the boil and I've struggled to catch even three skimmers when before roach to 12oz were always a possibility. This has meant going off in search of other potential spots but so far I've found nothing that matches the previous catches either for size or quantity.
As Autumn arrives it may be that the roach will reappear so I will definitely go back and try again. I still believe there is the possibility of a fish of more than a pound but it could take all of Autumn and Winter to catch it.

In the mean time I have decided to spend at least one session a week on a small commercial that has so far given me three roach of more than a pound this year. I fish on what I call Lake 2 and have discovered it contains a really good head of roach with half pound fish commonplace. Of course bream are present too but generally speaking it is possible to get the roach going by feeding hemp and fishing breadflake over it. I have a favourite swim that has been very kind to me so far and believe I may well of lost a roach of over one and a half pounds just last week. Although gutted by this it does at least fill me with optimism for the coming months.
I intend to start an Autumn roach diary from my next session and to publish it on here each week.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your Autumn fishing wherever it may be.

Where's your big sister hiding?



The Times They Are A-Changin'

Luxurious boathouse Lancaster canal

Roach 12oz Banks Pond

2lb Wigan tench

A near 9lb albino carp

A poor photo of a 2lb 13oz Villa Perch

1lb 3oz Roach from the Villa

It's been some time since I posted- a time of broken computers and relationships, house moving and new routines... the life saving constant has been fishing. Here's some photos that capture some moments from a turbulent time- some are a bit poor others fine but I hope interesting.
With the imminent arrival of a new computer I should be back to posting in a couple of weeks...good luck with your fishing.

The Pursuit of Roach and Happiness

As October drew to a close I said a fond farewell to the Leeds Liverpool canal by way of a couple of short sessions on my two favourite stretches. No remarkable catches just a few small roach and perch and a soaking on both days. So now I have a new challenge as we have moved to live in Lancaster. The canal is only a few minutes walk from home so I'm about to embark on exploring this city centre stretch. If I follow the canal in one direction it leads me to a large basin area which I'm told has plenty of pike and I would assume lots of other fish too. If I go the other direction the canal passes old mill buildings and eventually reaches the Lune Aqueduct. At the moment I favour investigating this stretch. I've walked a short section of it and there's plenty of far bank tree cover plus high walls that keep the canal separate from roads and houses that surround it. Of course as it is now winter the big challenge is finding where the fish have decided to hole up. This is made harder by limited time due to work and the short daylight hours. Some mornings I manage a quick walk along the towpath whilst I'm on the way to work. I'm searching for any signs of fish, even small fry breaking the surface would be an indication of where they have gone.

So far I have had a few short sessions on this new stretch and have blanked twice and managed a small bream and a roach of 4oz on the other occasion. In fairness to the canal and myself conditions on each visit have been far from perfect. One day it was snowing, another there was a fearsome easterly blowing and on the day I did catch it was actually fairly benign conditions. `Of course I've met a couple of local experts who've informed me that 'further along is better and that maggots are the best bait'! Being me I've ignored this received wisdom and continued in my own vein using breadflake or crust. If it was good enough for the old canal experts like Albert Oldfield then it's good enough for me. Angling may have become far more technologically advanced in recent years but roach are still roach and if you can find them it's my experience that bread is still a top class bait especially in the winter.

I've also been reading to brush up my skills at canal fishing. When I first began fishing way back when I was 12 years old my guide was Peter Stone's Teach Yourself Coarse Fishing.There was a copy in the school library and I probably spent far too much time reading that rather than concentrating on my studies. My new guide is Canal Fishing by Kenneth Seaman. Originally published as part of the Pan Angler's Library, which also published Dick Walker's Stillwater Angling, it is proving to be an invaluable guide plus it contains a few great stories about  the canal experts of the 60s and 70s.. There are chapters on bait, tackle and the fish likely to be found in your local 'cut'. My favourite chapter not surprisingly is the one on big roach and it's in this one that we get a few hints on the exploits of Mr Oldfield.
Apparently Albert rated lobworms or lob tails as his favourite roach bait. after a cold snap had ended and caught numerous  2lb plus fish using them. On one occasion he caught a magnificent 3lb 2oz specimen on a lob tail fished through a hole in the ice. The story goes that he had fished the same spot a dozen times without a single bite before this outstanding fish was caught. Most of us would have given up long before that and maybe that's the essential essence of fishing for big roach. It's easy to catch small ones but to net a truly remarkable fish requires perseverance, patience and a great understanding of both your quarry and the water you are fishing and maybe a bit of luck too.
By fishing a wild, unstocked water like the Lancaster canal I am of course making a huge assumption that specimen roach are still present. With increased levels of predation and illegal netting it could be that none exist.Thankfully we seem to be free of cormorants which may be a result of the canals proximity to the M6 and the fact that it is still a navigable stretch so there are plenty of smaller fish.  So far I have caught fish up to 9oz in the Carnforth area and truly believe that bigger fish are present. From my point of view I would rather spend another season trying to catch one, suffering the frustrations and blank days that I know will come because if I do manage to break the magical 2lb mark I will be the happiest man alive.


                   

My Autumns Done Come

Here's my September tale, complete with Lee Hazelwood song title appropriated for this latest update.
It's been a strange month for fishing. I have to confess I had high hopes for the beginning of Autumn and foolishly even thought a big roach would figure somewhere along the way. Alas it was a month of blustery showers, cold winds and limited opportunities. Like many people I had been hoping for an Indian summer but that seems to have passed us by in much the same way as the summer did.
 As both of my children are now at school- Iris has just started in reception- my weekdays off are once again free for me between nine o'clock at two thirty in the afternoon. As a consequence of spending most of the week in the south Lakes area most of my fishing this month has been on the Lancaster Canal at Carnforth  with one trip to a small commercial fishery just south of Kendal.
Gatebeck Tarn is situated in the village of Endmoor and I had no idea it was there until I happened upon it one night whilst searching through a website devoted to fishing in the Lake District. It bills itself as a mixed coarse fishery and is a bargain £5 a day to fish. I liked the fact that it didn't seem too carp centric and I thought it might just promise a roach surprise.

Perch Corner

I had a Monday off so duly picked up my day ticket in the tackle shop in Kendal, had a quick chat with the guy there about which swims to fish and headed off. Unfortunately it was one of those showery
days where it goes from not raining to absolutely belting it down in about two seconds. This combined with a freshening south easterly wind didn't really produce the most conducive conditions. I'd also neglected to take any maggots with me so was relying on bread, sweetcorn and worms to get me amongst the fish. In retrospect a mistake but these baits had served me well throughout the summer so I had no reason to believe they would fail me. Of course they did and after trying three of the supposedly 'hot pegs' I ended up in what I have now named Perch Corner. At least it was sheltered and finally after four blank hours I managed to catch six small perch on float fished worm. It's a pleasant place to spend a day and once they sort out the weed problem I can see myself returning to have a go at the tench next summer.
The canal on the other hand has been a bit of a revelation. As a member of Kendal Angling club I can fish a decent length of the Lancaster Canal up to its end at Stainton. Recently an agreement with Carnforth Anglers has allowed us to fish one of their stretches in the Carnforth area. As this is closer to where I stay in the week I have been making the most of this opportunity. Although this is still a navigable stretch there are no locks and you only get maybe four or five boats a day come through. Consequently it has not silted up and you have around five foot or so of water in the boat channel and the water is for the best part quite coloured. A couple of evening sessions in the summer produced roach/bream hybrids up to 2lbs on sweetcorn as well as a smattering of smaller roach.
One of the things I enjoy about fishing on canals is the conversations you have with folk out walking the towpath. In the Wigan area I seem to have numerous comments about the rods and reels I'm using. Roach poles are very much the order of the day so I tend to stand out a bit with my vintage tackle.
I was having a quiet morning with just a few dog walkers for company and a couple of canoeists passing by. My first bite came as I was throwing a ball for a friendly boxer dog that seemed to like me. Of course I missed it- the bite that is and after a couple of hours with only a small eel to show for my efforts I fell into conversation with an older couple out walking their Border terrier. This chap seemed to know a lot about the stretch of canal I was fishing and about 30 minutes later on their way back past me he asked how I was getting on and suggested a spot further along that he had heard was good.  After a short rain shower I gathered up my gear and went off to find it.

As you can see from the photograph there is a large concrete run off contraption on the far bank that keeps a constant stream of water running into the canal. First cast I picked up a skimmer on bread flake and that was me set for the next couple of hours with fish coming regularly to give me a nice mixed bag of roach, bream and hybrids. Nothing big but roach to nine ounces are pleasant to catch and it fuels the belief that there may be bigger ones lurking below that little island just off the far bank.
I've been back several times since and always catch but the impossible fish remain just that. Still as they say you'll catch nothing sat at home by the fire so I look forward to the rest of autumn and the winter to see if I can get a roach of more than a pound.

Short Sessions, Summer Holidays and Children Fishing.

It must be the summer holidays if I've thrown caution to the wind and decided to take the children fishing.With the normal routine of school and nursery suspended for six weeks my wife and I are working extra Sundays so that we are available during the week. It cuts down the cost of holiday club and gives the grandparents a bit of a break too.I've been fitting in a few short early morning sessions on the canal but it's starting to feel a bit like groundhog day as each one seems to produce almost identical fish- a chub followed by a couple of roach being the usual pattern.I tried a couple of evening sessions as well but the results were similar to the mornings except for one evening when I connected with a decent fish that took of really quickly and powerfully before it seemed to get caught around a snag mid canal. I applied pressure from both sides but couldn't move it at which point I was thinking that I had become attached to a shopping trolley or similar large item. In retrospect I should have eased off and hoped that it would move of its own accord. Instead the hook obviously lost its hold and suddenly the fish was gone. At least it shows that there are some large fish present.
I've taken the children to the Figure of Eight a couple of times which has been entertaining if a little stressful at times. James is great if the fish are biting and the action is quick enough to hold his attention but when things slow down he would rather use a bankstick as a sword and run around fighting imaginary foes.Iris bless her is only four and is a bundle of energy so finds it hard to sit still for long. She likes to look at the fish we catch and play with the bait- she's fascinated by 'magnets' as she calls them. For me I seem to spend a lot of time sorting out tangles, tackling up and unhooking James' fish leaving less time for me to fish. At least it gets them out in the fresh air and they do seem to actually enjoy it for the best part.
On the first trip James managed to catch 30 fish- a nice mixed bag of skimmers, roach and perch- so he was well chuffed and really showed signs of becoming an angler. Also, thanks to Iris, he's now not afraid to touch maggots. You can't allow yourself to be outdone by your four year old sister when you're a seven year old boy.



First fish of the summer!


On our second trip James managed to catch his biggest fish ever, a nice little carp of just over 2lbs.




James' biggest fish!

The last ten days of August were spent on holiday in Kent. Luckily there was just enough room in the Focus to pack some rods and tackle so we spent a couple of days on some Kent commercials. The first port of call was Longshaw Farm near Canterbury which I'd chosen because of its reputation for roach fishing.It was a rare gloriously sunny day and we took our friends Andy and Jack both of whom had never fished before. Once again my role was to tackle up, feed and give help.
We fished the match lake and straight away James was into fish. The skimmers seemed positively suicidal so it was frantic fish a cast action until I slowed things down by changing bait from maggots to sweetcorn. This had the effect of improving the size of the fish and numerous bream in the half a pound to one pound class followed along with a smattering of small carp and some roach up to half a pound. As the temperature rose the fish showed no signs of stopping feeding and around midday we started to pick up common carp up to four pounds on breadflake. Andy and Jack got their fair share of fish too with a few sizable bream as well as some carp.By 1pm the lads had had enough and so I got the chance to fish on for an hour. I picked up a few roach and a couple more carp and then finished the day with a personal best crucian of 1lb 10oz caught on the last cast of the day.





James and Jack sneak into the photo whilst Andy gets his finger in too!

James and I had a second day out a week later at the Sandwich lakes fishery.It was a blustery day with a few heavy showers and we had only five hours to fish from 7am as we had a date with a Roman fort in the afternoon.Our chosen lake that promised tench and crucians was unfortunately undergoing extensive maintenance work so once again we chose a match lake to fish. There's no point sitting it out on a carp lake with such a short time to fish and of course to keep James engaged we need the promise of speedy results. A chat with the friendly fellow in the tackle shop on site soon had us armed with maggots and heading off for the far end of the lake to fish in the margins with the promise of roach and possibly some decent perch. I'd cooked up some pearl barley the night before so we gave that a try first and it wasn't long until James was into a carp. Sadly he lost it as his line snapped near the float so we tackled up again and switched to maggots.
This proved the best move for James as he was soon picking up small roach and perch.I decided to give breadflake a go and got straight into some small carp of around two pounds which give great sport on 3lb line and float tackle. I lost my first one at the net as the hook pulled out but got the second one safely in. It looks to me as though it is a koi given the colouring of the fins and overall pale colour. Whatever it is for its size it gave a tremendous fight.





Are you a koi?

We were joined by endless carp rooting about in the reeds and no matter what bait we used, whether a single red maggot or bread we kept hooking them. However, our success rate at landing them was really poor and James lost at least five mainly due to the hooks pulling out and the odd breakage. I switched bait regularly and eventually hooked a decent perch of just over half a pound.

A Kentish perch


With time running out and another heavy shower starting we finally packed away. Not a bad mornings fishing and we got to do the 'dad and lad' deal too.
There's a distinct sense of autumn in the air as I write this and I'm looking forward to the next month or so as I continue to pursue the roach in the canal and also visit a small lake I have found that looks very promising.

Favourite Floats

The other night I lost my favourite float. I'd gone to fish on the Lancaster Canal in Carnforth for a few hours on Monday evening and was making my first cast when this awful event happened. I'd set up at what I guessed to be about the correct depth and had attached an extra BB shot to plumb the depth. I was aiming for the far bank but completely misjudged the distance and sent the float straight in to a large tree opposite me. I tried pulling it back but predictably the 3lb line snapped the wrong side of the float. So my once prized vintage cork and cane antenna float that I had lovingly restored now hangs forlornly from a tree. I'm upset because it was the float I had been using when I caught both my personal best roach and tench in the last couple of weeks.
 If I had mass produced modern plastic floats in my collection it wouldn't have bothered me at all. But this was a piece of angling history- a float almost as old as me and crafted to be both aesthetically pleasing as well as functional and by its very nature completely irreplaceable. Therin lies the dilema of using vintage tackle. It may break or get lost and if this happens it is bound to hurt. Last year I snapped the last few inches off my Sealey Octopus Cane float rod. Luckily I have managed to repair the rod so it is once again usable but a float left hanging from a completely inaccessible tree is gone forever.
I shouldn't despair so much as after all I have a plenty more floats to use and love. In the 19070s I was totally in thrall to Denton floats mainly because my local tackle shop in the Forest of Dean sold them. I still have plenty left in my collection and with a few other Winfield ones probably have more than enough to last my lifetime.



A few of my favourite Denton floats

Of course there are also a wealth of handmade traditional style floats to be bought on auction sites and I often fall  for these too. There is something quite special about a lovingly produced goose quill tench float that I just can't resist. Porcupine quills are another fascination for me and these too can be sourced easily from the internet and even at car boot sales.




Goose quill Tench flots

Like anglers from years ago I probably have too many floats but I have always loved them. Nowadays I make some myself. It's cheap and relatively easy to do and you find that you improve with every one you make. I make them in a vintage style that owes much to the Denton floats I always liked. If I lose one of these then there are no tears as I can replace it within a week.
 As for that cane and cork antenna I'll have to search the auction sites for a possible substitute. In my heart I know I will never replace a float that I caught a near 2lb roach on but I may find a usuable alternative.