roach

April 2024- Part 1 The Bs continue!

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With the forthcoming match at Boddington on the near horizon I took my self up there on Tuesday 2nd, mainly to check the water levels and confirm with the bailiff that he had all the details. I decided to go light and just took the whips, setting up on peg 38.

Unusually for Boddington it was like a millpond when I arrived so set up a 6m Chinese whip with a new float that had a long multi-coloured bristle with a sight bob on 0.14mm line and 0.10mm hooklength to an 18. The water was lapping the top platform and I had about 9-10 feet at 8m.

I started off with three balls of groundbait and loose fed over the top. It was slower than normal but plenty of bites, unfortunately the fish were predominately very small with just the odd better example. In the 3 or so hours I was there I had 60 roach and lost two lumps on the whip, the first probably a carp, the second a pike.

Saturday arrives along with the 47mph winds! To be fair it was very windy all day with certain periods that were worse than others and this caused problems with presentation for most. I was running the match and at the draw the last peg in the hat was mine – peg 38! Just where I had been in the week! I had intended to take the pole but with the projected winds I settled on the whips and a waggler rod. To cut a long story short I had 36 roach, lost a lump that was a pike (scale on hook) after a brief fight, had most of the fish in the first 2 hours and then struggled, a couple on the waggler but most on the whip. One of the comments on the day – “presentation was impossible with the waves, one moment the float was a foot out of the water next it was a foot under”. I did manage to sneak a couple of pictures at the calmest point of the day, at points the waves were crashing into the platforms and sending spray up in the air, particularly on the dam wall.

So Monday sees me continuing with the B theme – Burbrook, as I had booked into a match on the Sunday. As I had to collect the exchange ticket first I did not start until 9:30 and set up on peg 1. Plumbing up I had a full top kit in depth once past the initial margin shelf then it was consistent. I set up with a 0.10mm hooklength to a modern 18(explanation to follow) with a 0.6g homemade float. There were a couple of others fishing further down the other end also. I began with two hard balls of groundbait laced with casters at 8m and fed a swim to my right just over the shelf plus one to my right where I put in some chopped worm. By 1 o’clock I had caught 4 small perch all on maggot, one from the right and the rest out in front. I had lost a better fish with my only bite on the left and had two very small roach drop off on shipping back. At this point I decided changes where the order of the day, so first I put on an old style 17 hook which when you compare it to a modern day 20 is smaller! The modern hooks do not have any consistency of size across not just brands but also within brands! Secondly I put out three large pots of loose groundbait with just a pinch of caster on the 8m line. This seemed to work as between one and two o’clock I added 4 chub, a hybrid and a roach.

As the old adage goes – if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got! Change was needed and this is probably something I need to work on as I can be stubborn trying to make a method work!

Sunday arrives Burbrook is only small and the ten pegs that were in filled the place. The four left out were 1,6,11 and 14, either because they crossed other pegs or were in the process of being “desnagged”. I drew peg 13 which after being told by a regular that it was in the corner, which I thought odd as that I thought was 14, the match organiser then came around and indeed the regular was on the wrong peg so we shifted up one and finally on 13 I looked across and there was peg 1 about 20m away!

Setting up like on peg one I also set up a rig for close in (2+1) which was the same depth but used a light float for on the drop and a heavier margin rig for the left margin where I planned to put chopped worm, micro and caster. The match got under way and it was hard, after 2 hours I was blanking while the regular on 12 was catch small fish at mid depth. The light rig produced nothing but finally on my peg 1 rig I got a perch on a tiny piece of worm over my caster line. I had one perch from my margin line, so at 12:30 I cupped out three pots of loose groundbait and sat and waited. Maggot had not got me a single bite so I persisted with small pieces of worm then at 2 o’clock I had my first bite, a small chub. Twenty minutes later another came to the net along with another perch and roach. That was it, I missed three bites that I am sure were liners as the float shot under but nothing and no marks on the bait.

The match had been hard for all, with some only having one fish, with three left to weigh I was lying second with a level 2lb behind a single carp of 3lb, peg 2 then put 2-06 on the scales and Darren who was on peg 3 put 3-06 on the scales to make me 4th and one out of the money! Darren, who had lost a big fish earlier in the match said he had a last minute chub that swung it for him, proving you need to keep going right to the end.

My thoughts now turn to the three day event I am in charge of at Woodland View at the end of the month.

Cheesey what?

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More than 45 years ago I learned the secret art of  cheese fishing – not for chub in a river but for roach and tench in a park lake! Brynmill Park, Swansea was the venue, home of small roach and cheese fish of wondrous proportions in the eyes of a teenager more used to catching 1oz fish!

PCD-04863Alas Brynmill Park no longer allows fishing but the skills learned from the gurus of the day – Alan Godrich and Paul Huxtable- live on. Poles were not available then, you could get fibre glass telescopic whips up to 6m, elastics unheard of, everything was rod and line.

Alan developed a method of catching the better roach using cheese  just over his rod top in about 3 foot of water. A pointed stick float was dotted with strung out shot to an 18 or 20 hook and a piece of cheese was moulded around the hook so that it was soft and just covered the hook. Small pieces were moulded and rolled as loose feed, only half a dozen at a time, one after the other they were tossed around the pimpled stick, the process repeated every five minutes or so. Bites when they came were dictated by the size of fish! The bigger fish rarely submerged the float, usually a minute lift or dip were all you would get, occasionally just a ripple emanating from the tip of the float, the medium to small fish would just submerge the float. Bait was interesting, Cheddar was the favorite closely followed by Red Leicester for the roach, but Caerphilly picked out the odd tench although it was a sod to keep on the hook!

Today’s weaponry makes it far easier to fish cheese at a greater distance and when combined with a micro pellet loose feed can prove deadly- especially for bream! Most commercial waters these days are fed with pellet, either by the anglers or the owners as a supplement to the anglers bait. Fish become accustomed to pellet but can also become wary, particularly the silvers who often have to wait for any left overs from the carp. Cheese can score as so few people think of using cheese it becomes a new flavour/food for the pellet fed fish and will pick out the older and wiser (usually bigger) specimens in the swim.

So how do I fish cheese today? Depending on the venue, the depth of water will dictate how far out you need to fish. You are looking for a flat bottom with at least 3 feet of water, at Blacklands I am fishing at 8m in 6-7 feet (as the depth is constant) but I would not try cheese any deeper than this unless there was a large head of big roach present. The basic rules still apply, float pimpled, strung out shot if in a shallower swim, my rig at Blacklands has a bulk 2 feet away from the hook and 2 no 10 droppers to a 6 inch hook length of 0.10mm Shogun, with a 20 0r 18 barbless B911. Elastics are very much dependent, as always,  upon the size of fish likely to be encountered. At Blacklands I tend to opt for a no 6 latex, but have an 6-8 hollow rig set up as well if the bigger skimmers or roach move in, although generally I tend to stay on the no 6.

I use two types of float for my cheese fishing, both homemade; the first is a 0.5g version of the “Roach” with a 1.5mm tip for those times when you want a delicate approach and may want to string the shot out later in the day,

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the second is a long glass stemmed diamond body variant taking 1g with a 2mm tip. I use this second float when I am confident that there are skimmers around and want to get the cheese down fast. Pimpling the 2mm tip gives a good visual marker even in wind affected water while the long stem gets down past any surface tow.

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I prime the swim with a handful of micro pellet and half a dozen “pellets” of cheese cupped in, this is left for at least an hour and is topped up with a similar amount every 30 minutes.

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When I go over the swim I am expecting a bite within 5 minutes but this time the bites can be sail-aways if coming from bream or skimmers but the big roach give the same type of bite as all those years ago!