Quest for a big roach on the Stroudwater Navigation

For a few years now while chasing perch and jack pike with light spinning gear in the clear waters of the local canal, I've noticed amongst the shoals of small roach and rudd there lurks the occasional red finned behemoth that even dwarfs some of the resident tench. Having spotted a rather sizable specimen in the same area on a number of occasions I thought it high time I dusted off the light float gear and had a crack at catching the beast, which I'd estimated at being in excess of 2lb.

Some of the smaller red finned residents of the local canal.

My approach was to be a simple float rig consisting of a size 18 hook tied to a 2.5lb hook link and a fine tipped 4BB float on a 3lb mainline. I didn't want to go any lighter as there are a number of tench in the canal which in the summer gets quite weedy and I wanted to use tackle that could deal with them should they take the bait. As for bait, I decided on maggots and worms.

I arrived at my chosen spot at around 6pm for a few hours fishing after work. I could see a few small fish of a few ounces, but the monster roach was nowhere to be seen. While I set my kit up, I periodically threw a pinch of maggots into the swim to try and get the fish feeding confidently and competing for the food, and also to try and lure any bigger fish out from their hiding places. I plumbed up to fish just on top of the weed which covered most of the bottom and I was ready to start my quest!

A nice sized perch from the canal.

I opted to fish just over half way across, so I had room to sink the line and because from my spinning adventures I knew the far bank could be quite weedy. First cast with a maggot hook bait and the float barely had time to settle before being dragged violently into the depths. I knew straight away that it was no roach, and sure enough a short time later the stripy culprit was in the net. Despite fishing for them for the last 4 or 5 years, I'd completely forgotten to take into account the large perch population when making my bait choices, bugger!

I knew the roach weren't going to get a look in while the perch were around, so the only sensible(?) solution I could think of was to target the perch until the bites dried up, so I shallowed up and switched to a worm hook bait. After about half an hour and many, many perch later I'd managed to work my way through most of the shoal and the bites had pretty much dried up, it appeared my somewhat hopeful solution was actually working, so I reset the depth and switched back to a maggot hook bait. I caught a few small roach and rudd and the fish were starting to take the bait on the drop as the "little and often" baiting strategy had got them competing with each other for the food higher up in the water. On feeding one of my regular pinches of maggot, a sizable swirl distorted the waters surface, followed by a large flash of silver as my target fish had decided to come to the dinner table. Game on!

I stopped fishing for a few minutes while flicking a constant stream of maggots into the swim to try and get my target fish feeding confidently. My plan seemed to work flawlessly as sure enough, after a few minutes, every time I flicked a few maggots into the swim the red finned leviathan bullied all the smaller fish out of its way as it darted about the swim picking off virtually every single maggot before they'd sank more than a couple of inches. This was going to be easy I thought...

How wrong I was! Every time I cast out, I flicked out a few maggots around the float, which promptly got gobbled up by the marauding fish, but it avoided my hook bait like the plague. I conducted a little test in the edge of the canal to see if my hook bait was behaving differently to the freebies. It seemed to be sinking at about the same rate, in fact everything seemed to be working as intended, so I concluded the fish must be able to see either the hook or the line. I had a rummage around in my minimalistic tackle box and found an old pack of size 20 hooks. I didn't have any lighter line, so I tied a size 20 to my hook link and hoped the smaller hook would be enough to fool the fish into taking the bait.

Looking down the Stroudwater Navigation.

I flicked out a few more freebies and promptly cast my float into the area. As usual my target fish zipped about the swim hoovering up the free offerings, only this time it took my hook bait too! Unfortunately, no sooner had it sucked it in, it had spat it back out. The water was clear enough to see my bait sink most of the way to the bottom, if it wasn't I'd never even have known I'd had a bite as the float didn't even twitch. The fish took my hook bait about 1 in every 5 casts, and every time it ejected it in less time than it takes to blink. Out of frustration I even tried striking as the fish was about to take the bait to try and time the point at which the hook moved to coincide with the split second it was inside the fishes mouth. Needless to say this tactic didn't work and only helped to frustrate me further. I knew my problem was it could feel the hook or line against its lips, and I had no way of scaling down my tackle any further. My only option was to keep trying with what I had and hope that as the sun sank behind the horizon and the light faded, the fish would lose some of its inhibitions and make a mistake. Sadly this wasn't to be. The weather took a turn for the worse and a heavy downpour seemed to drive all of the fish into hiding. I stuck it out for another 20 minutes or so, but with only 1 bite from a small greedy perch and the canopy of the trees failing to act as an adequate umbrella I decided to admit defeat and head home.

After a few days of unsettled weather, I decided to have another go, this time armed with the lightest tackle my local shop had to offer. I set up in the same spot, again in the evening after work, but this time with a size 22 hook pre-tied to a 1lb 10oz hook link, hanging under a tiny 2 x no.1 float dotted right down to almost the level of the water. I applied the same tactics of feeding just a few maggots every few minutes, but the big fish was nowhere to be seen. I caught plenty of small roach, rudd and perch during the first hour or so, and then came the sight I'd been waiting for. The big redfin was back, so again I stopped fishing while I trickle fed a stream of maggots until the fish was once again pillaging every single morsel that entered the water before any of the other fish had a chance. I cast a double maggot hook bait into the midst of the frenzied feeding, and to my surprise the fish took my hook bait almost instantly and the float shot across the surface of the canal. I struck and felt the light rod bend into the fish, and then disaster, the hook didn't take hold! My line catapulted out of the fishes mouth into a nearby bush, and the fish dashed off back to safety. I'd blown it.

I retrieved my rig from the bush, but the hook link was badly kinked from the inevitable tangle. I almost called it a day and went home, but it was still early and I had nothing better to do, so I tied on a new hook link and decided to fish on for the smaller residents and wait for dusk when I might be able to pick up a tench or two. No sooner had I started feeding the swim again, the big fish was back! Sir Izaak himself must have been smiling down upon me that day. I regained it's confidence by once again feeding without fishing, and after a few casts it slipped up again, taking my hook bait and dragging the float under the surface. I struck and this time the fish was on. It made a beeline for the far bank reeds but I managed to stop it and turn it back to open water. A few more dashes for freedom later and a heart stopping moment when it managed to get around a lone lily pad, I'd managed to draw the fish over the lip of the net, she was mine!

I weighed her in at 2lb exactly and took a cheeky selfie as there was no-one around to take a photo for me and I didn't have anywhere suitable to rest my camera to use the self timer function. I was one happy chappy, despite looking somewhat miserable in the picture! There was however, a twist to this tale, as those of you who know your fish may have noticed. My monster roach wasn't a roach! It didn't look right, it was too long, the scales looked too small and the eye was the wrong colour. It wasn't a rudd or a chub, it was too big for a dace and the fins were all wrong anyway, it didn't look remotely "breamy" in anyway either so that ruled out hybrids... So what was it? After a quick google when I got home and a lateral line scale count of 58 from the photos, the most likely candidate was an ide, a species I'd never caught before (apart from the ornamental orfe variety at anglers paradise in Devon) and a species that wasn't even meant to be present in the canal. I guess it must have found its way there during the floods of recent years, or maybe it outgrew someones fish tank, or perhaps they've been in there for years and everyone has just assumed they were roach just as I did. Either way it doesn't really matter, I enjoyed the time spent chasing the scale perfect creature, which of course was safely returned to its watery home. It did lead me to wonder, however, was it the only ide in there, or were most, even all the big "roach" I had seen over the years actually ide as well? This is a question I may try and set out to answer in the future...