As the autumn rolls on and the temperatures drop, I will be turning my attention to either pike or roach fishing. Not being a fan of the pike, I doubt if there will be many sessions chasing them, but the roach on the other hand are my primary target species during the colder months. With that in mind, I have slimmed down the gear I bring with me. There is no point in dragging around gear for tench and rudd when I won’t be fishing for them.
Today I freed up time for a short session and headed for the lakes in Claremorris once again. Hard fished and heavily poached, they still hold good stocks of roach with some bream in there too. So what did I bring with me?
Rod – the 13′ Daiwa Ninja match rod. I have settled on this one as it covers all my float fishing needs for roach. On it at all times I have that ABU 3000 filled with 5 pound nylon. I toyed with switching to something lighter such as 3 pound nylon which would have suited winter fishing much better, but the 5 pound is nearly brand new so I was not going to toss it away.
Net – a 20 inch round net and the 6 foot handle. I usually take that handle plus a three metre telescopic with me so I have options, but the winter fishing will be from pontoons and jetties, so the short handle will be fine. By only taking one rod and one net handle I can cut out the quiver which I normally bring filled with rods.
Seat – I have plumped for the old seatbox and left the Korum S23 at home. With the chair I also have to bring a rucksack for my smaller tackle and the side tray. With minimal gear now, I can fit everything into the seatbox, saving a lot of weight.
In the box – a tackle box, hook length box, ground bait, a towel, mixing bowl, bait and food for me.
The rest – any small items are in the pockets of my waistcoat
The above constitutes phase 1 of the slim down, phase 2 is a move over to the whip in place of the waggler rod. Ok, that is enough about gear, what happened at the fishing?
To set the scene, we have had a fair old bit of rain over recent weeks and the drought conditions of the summer are but a distant memory now. It poured down last night again but had dried up by the time I set off for Claremorris. Not paying much heed to yesterdays weather, I toddled down the road and through the town to the car park where I got togged up and marched off to the bottom lake. It was only when crossing the wee bridge over the stream that I saw a potential problem. That normally quiet link between the lakes was now a raging torrent which had clearly burst its banks and flooded the land around it. Walking through the gates into the park I was greeted with ankle deep water and a growing sense of foreboding. The small wooden bridge near the bandstand was only just accessible through standing water, but further on the access to my normal floating stand was far too deep foe me to cross in wellies. Along the path which was all under water, I splashed my way to the next stand but it too was beyond reach of all but the resident ducks. Turning back, I re-crossed the wooden bridge and checked out the disabled stand but if anything it was in even deeper water. It was looking like there would be no fishing for this boy today, until I had a thought. What if I fished off the wooden bridge?
I looked at it and figured there was every chance a roach or two would be in the flooded stream, so I set up there and fed some maggots into the dirty water flowing below me. In summer conditions there is barely a few inches of water here, but today it looked good and I set up with a perch float with a size 14 barbless under it set at about 20 inches. The flow was much more sedate than just a few yards further upstream, no doubt helped by the thick reed bed which all but blocked the channel above this bridge. Thick grey clouds overhead spoke of more rain to come, but for now it was a lovely day to be out and about. A roach now would be the icing on the cake.
The thirteen footer was, shall we say a little over gunned for this type of fishing but it was all I had so I was going to make the best of it. I lowered the float into the stream and within a few yards it dipped but I missed that one. Another plonk (I can’t describe it as a cast) and the same thing happened again. In total I missed 4 bites in a dozen plonks before I finally got one, a lovely little roach in all its autumn splendour. Another came along soon after and in no time I had landed a dozen but missed or lost four times as many.
The level of missed bites and drop offs was too high and I had to try something to improve my ratio of offers to fish landed. Off came the size 14 which I suspected was too big, and on went a size 16. Resuming where I had left off, I found the swim deserted by the roach. No bites at all for 15 minutes or so. I wondered if the fish had dropped down to the bottom, so I adjusted the float accordingly. That made not a whit of difference and so I went the other way and fished only a foot under the float for a while, again with no interest from the fish. Looking back, I now suspect a pike had come into the swim as it went from frantic action to totally dead in the few minutes it took me to change the hooklength.
Up until now I had been fishing at very close range, from under the rod tip to about five yards down river. Now I started trotting properly, letting the float down the gently flowing stream as far as I could see the red tip. I missed one bite but got the second one, another plump, silvery roach of about 6 ounces. I would go on to catch more and very similar proportions by trotting down that meandering wee stream. It was a gorgeous way to fish, concentrating hard on the tiny red dot in the distance, missing lots of bites but hooking enough to keep a smile on my face. The normally busy park was deserted due to the flooding, so I had the place virtually to myself with just the honking geese for company.
Not wanting to over-feed, I only fed in 4 or 5 maggots each cast. Every few casts the float would register some interest and sometimes I’d connect with a 4 or 6 ounce fish. The gap between bites grew longer and longer, so maybe I did not toss in enough maggots, but the fishing had lowed down a lot by midday. I caught my 25th fish at 12.30 but there were off offers for the next 30 minutes so I called it a day at 1pm. Once again I had a lovely session, maybe not the most productive in terms of the number or size of fish, but that matters little to me. The weather had been kind and just being out in the cool air was a tonic. I had been lucky that the shoal of roach were in that swim when I set up but I like to think I made the most of a bad job.
We have a wedding tomorrow and with family over from England I will be tied up until Sunday at the earliest, so no fishing for me in the near future. After that, the weather will decide where and when I’ll be out and about with the rods again. If it is too wild I’ll spend some time at the vice and kick off my winters fly tying as there are an awful lot of flies to be tied before next spring.
