not exactly January

Well – not exactly January – the first trip was actually Boxing Day, when desperate to get out, and after days of heavy rain I headed off to Oxford. Sightings of rivers en route confirmed my suspicions – they were extremely wide! But I had this thought that however high the river, the fish would still be there, and probably concentrated in a slack, where they might well feed. If I could just find that slack…. Find the slack? When I got there I couldn’t find the river! The only place to fish was in the fields, so after 20 minutes fiddling about trying to get a bite in the margins of the only fishable swim, I went home. If only I could have found an eddy like Mr. Crabtree’s. Potential Y2K problems at work, and other family type Christmas commitments meant it wasn’t until the 3rd of January that I got out again. M’s river fishes well in a flood – so I decided to go there. But typically, after the ridiculous Oxford day, now we wanted to find the river in flood it had dropped dramatically, and wasn’t that much higher than it had been when I last went. You have to try though, so I wandered here and there with a float rod. The first fish of the millennium was a 1lb chub. The second a 2lb chub. The next a 4lb chub, a cracking fish which put up the devil of a fight, all these fish coming on the float. Hmm these chub were doubling in size every time – would the next fish weigh 8lbs? Well it might have – a tentative strike at a slight dip of the float put me in touch with a fish that felt like a roach. I played it upstream until it was just in front of me, when it went suddenly heavy, and quite still. I thought it had snagged me by going under the marginal reeds, but a look at the angle of the line showed that it was a least a yard further out, and from the position of the float I could see it was only a few feet down. Odd. I put a bit more pressure on, felt a strange swaying motion, then the hook pulled out. I reckon it was a roach, and a pike had grabbed it – it’s a fairly common occurrence here. There are big roach here too and what did worry me was that I might have been unintentionally live-baiting with a two-and-a-half pound roach! As with all winter days, this one passed very quickly, and late afternoon found us on the upper stretch of the river, with the temperature dropped by a nasty drizzle bearing wind. I hardly had a bite, but did manage a nice little roach of 12oz just before I packed up around 4pm. All set to go on the next Saturday – bread liquidised, sandwiches made. Then something came up at the last minute, and I couldn’t go after all. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go the following Saturday so watching the weather forecast carefully, planned a day off work. The best day it seemed would be Wednesday – ah, but I couldn’t go Wednesday. Thursday wasn’t too bad, and with a high-pressure system moving in after that I’d thought I’d take my chance and go then. The forecast wasn’t entirely right – air temperatures of 45F turned out to be nearer 35F in the cold north wind that wasn’t supposed to be significant. Still, at least the forecast occasional showers would keep light levels low. Would they? By mid-day the sun was shining brightly, and paradoxically, the air temperature had dropped even further. I suppose to be honest, the omens hadn’t been good. I’d intended getting up at about 6.40 and leaving just before 7a.m. At 6.30 a.m. I was awakened by my son asking me to take him on his paper round as it was pouring with rain. What can you say? We didn’t get back until after 8 a.m., and travelling up to Oxford I met with horrendous traffic jams. The usual one hour journey took over 2 hours, and I didn’t arrive until nearly 10.30 a.m .- precious hours wasted on a short winter’s day. As soon as I saw the river I realised it was still very high – this was going to be another struggle! I wasn’t sure if it hadn’t yet dropped off from the rains over Christmas, or whether the previous night’s rain had pushed the levels up again. For once I ignored the first swim, and continued upstream to the swim I’d caught the big trout in before Christmas. I’ve had good roach from here as well. There are very few decent slacks when the river comes up, but this swim does have a small quiet area on the inside of a bend. Ambitiously I set up the float rod. Before I’d even cast out I managed to get the float caught in a tree, and it was only with some difficulty, resulting in a severely bent wire stem that I disentangled it. On retrieving the first cast the float got caught on the marginal reeds which now stretched out nearly 20 feet from dry land. I pulled – the line snapped, leaving the float hanging by the edge of the river. I waded out to retrieve it, but just as I grasped the float I felt that telltale trickle of cold water around my right foot. You know the feeling – at first you put it down to imagination, some nerve tingling perhaps, but then comes the point where you really know you have a leak. I retrieved the float and waded back to dry land. These were new waders – I’d only worn them twice, and already they were leaking. Great – that meant that at least half the swims I wouldn’t be able to fish. What was I saying about omens? It quickly became apparent that even with a 15-foot rod, handicapped as I was by a leaky wader, float fishing wasn’t going to be a practical proposition, not in this swim anyway. I also noticed that I was having to squeeze the liquidised bread extremely hard to make it sink and wondered if this was because I’d frozen it after preparing it for last Saturday’s aborted trip. Though it was now defrosted, I wondered if freezing had affected it, maybe removed some of the moisture. I set up the quiver-tip. As usual, the end tackle comprised a small open-ended feeder and a smallish pinch of bread flake on a size 8 hook tied to 3.3lb Silstar Match I’m getting to really like this line despite my former allegiance to Super Shinobi. A small shot about 2 inches from the hook completed the set up. But even with a 15 foot quiver things were difficult, and when I missed the first bite (a good one) the strike pulled the line into the marginal reeds, from where I retrieved it minus the hook (size 8 Gamakatsu 6318 – the supply is diminishing!). I tied on another hook and tried again – exactly he same thing happened. This was no good – I needed to be nearer the water. I reckoned the hole in the waders was about a foot up my leg, so placing the rod on two high rod-rests I waded out as far as I could and stood beside it. Even then the tip was barely over the water as I stood, like some wild-west gunslinger, rod at hip waiting to strike. It worked though – I hit the next bite and landed a 3.3 chub. Was this the bait thief? No more bites, so I moved up to the swim where I’d had the 2.1 roach in December. It looked a bit too fast, but I gave it 10 minutes anyway. Nothing happened, as I expected., so I moved on. The next swim is an odd one, all sorts of conflicting currents, the swim where I’d caught the barbel in November. There was some quiet water right near the bank, fairly deep too, so I dropped a bait in, quiver-tipped flake. I missed the first 2 bites, then landed the inevitable brown trout. I don’t think I’ve ever been here without catching a trout! And he made such a commotion (as usual) I didn’t think it worth persevering, so continued upstream, this time dropping into one of my favourite swims. The only slack water was very close in, and to fish it without being in danger of striking into the marginal reeds, I had to sit almost on top of the fish. After 10 minutes the quiver gave a couple of very fishy taps followed by a jaggy pull round. I missed it. That happened twice more, and each time I missed the bite even though the tip was pulled right round. Hmm well I knew there were fish there – perhaps this would be a good time to try my “special” bait, the roach bait I’ve been putting in each time I’ve been to the river. Maybe they would hang onto that a bit longer. I moulded a piece of the paste around the hook and recast. After 5 or 6 minutes I had a very odd bite, a half-confident pull which almost seemed to say “oops, I didn’t mean to do that”. The rod tip sprang back just as I was about to strike. I left it there for 10 minutes, but nothing more happened, so I changed back to bread. Another good bite, another fruitless strike. I felt sure these were roach, and remembered the trouble I’d had on other days in hitting roach bites at close range. I usually try to sit a little further from the fish, but here I had no choice. A fresh bait, a 5 minute wait, and another good bite. This time I connected, and was soon looking at a beautiful deep roach of 1.7. This was worth all the trouble – I just love the look of big roach in winter. The swim died after that, so I moved again. The higher stretches of the river are less sheltered and up here the wind really began to bite. I zipped my jumper to the top, but in doing so got my beard caught in the zip. That’s painful! I fished the swim that had produced the other 2 pound roach I’d caught in December, but with no response. I turned and started to fish my way towards home. It was now 2pm, and panic was setting in. So much to do, so little time to do it. I had a few more bites, some I missed, the others didn’t develop into anything strikable. I ended up in the “Broken rod” swim at dusk, and once again it was an anti-climax – just one tap that didn’t turn into anything more exciting. It occurred to me that although I’ve said dusk is almost always quiet here, I’ve only fished one or two swims at that time, usually because they are near the car park and being in a rather isolated spot, I prefer not to be to far from the car when it gets dark. Perhaps I should be more adventurous – or buy an old banger…. An indoor cricket tournament meant I couldn’t fish on Saturday, so to make up for it I decided to take a weekday out from work, a day owed me from last year. I’m making that clear in case my boss is reading this… it’s happened before!! I once wrote a piece which mentioned that I used to go down to my local stretch of river Colne during my dinner break, and fish for roach and chub. The article went on to say that I was usually late back from lunch, but that I could safely say that because my boss (a woman at that time) wasn’t an angler. A few days after the article was published in Coarse Fisherman, a photo-copy of it appeared on my desk, with the above text circled in red, and a note saying “No, your boss doesn’t fish, but she knows a man who does!”. Apparently her brother fishes, and shopped me!!!). The weather forecast didn’t look too good for the week, Wednesday looking the best day – but I couldn’t go on Wednesday. A high-pressure system looked like sitting over the country for a while so I decided on Tuesday as there was no overnight frost forecast. I’ve mentioned before I’m a great believer in omens, and when we hit a massive traffic jam on the outskirts of Oxford, caused mainly by the thoughtless parking of a Transco van as the workmen dug a hole in the opposite carriageway, I started to get a bad feeling about the day. The normal hour-long journey took almost two and a half-hours, and at one point it took us an hour to drive just three miles. As we arrived at the river it became obvious that Oxford hadn’t been included in the weather forecast – all the puddles were frozen solid. Oh well, at least it was a nice day to be out and about. I sent Geoff far upstream, not, as some of his friends might think, to get him out of the way 😉 but because though smaller, there are generally more fish up there, and Geoff just likes catching fish. I was going to brave it on the specimen stretch – and it was going to be hard work. I moved from swim to swim, trying the float where I could, and quiver-tipping elsewhere. But hard as I tried I couldn’t get a single bite. I did catch a fish, a dace of about 8 ounces which was hanging on the end when I reeled in for a re-cast. The tip hadn’t moved. Late afternoon I was in the middle of what looks like a two hundred-yard roach swim, and what’s more, getting bites. As the light slowly faded I was getting a bite a cast. And I was missing a bite a cast too… one after another. I fiddled around with hook-lengths and hook sizes but it made no difference. I changed from flake to crust to bread-punch all to no avail. I tried four maggots on the hook, waited a little longer for the bite, then missed another good pull round, retrieving four completely crushed maggots – they’d obviously been right back to the pharengeal… pharngeal… pharangyeal… errrr throat teeth 😉 , yet still I missed the bite. Due to the nature of the swim I couldn’t change my fishing position, and time was too short for any major tackle changes. Anyway, when you get in those situations, you always think you’ll hit the next one don’t you. I didn’t – I missed the lot, giving me much food for thought. Geoff had fared a little better upstream getting a few small dace and chub, but the lower stretch had, as often it does, proved extremely frustrating. More so because I was convinced the bites I was missing were roach, and there are no small ones here. Between four and five p.m. I must have missed ten really good bites – they were occurring regularly, about five minutes after I put a bait out. We packed up at five p.m., and went to the local Macdonald’s where I licked my wounds, and ate a Big Mac. I would be back… and next time… Next time was the following Saturday, the high-pressure system was still dominant, but there wasn’t (quite) any overnight frost forecast. This would be my last opportunity to go for nearly two weeks, so however slim my chances I decided to go, if only on the basis that it was certain I wouldn’t catch anything if I stayed at home. Driving up to Oxford I heard the forecast on the radio – wintry showers, very strong northerly winds, high chill factor, brightening up later. I should have turned around then! The river was still very high, but also very clear. Once I moved from the shelter of the car park the wind hit me full on – it was absolutely freezing. I tried float fishing here and there, but as ever, the wind was downstream, or straight in my face, depending on which swim I was in. If I cast the float into midstream, it was under my own bank before it had travelled 10 yards – hopeless. If I tried to trot the near bank, the line was continually blown into the marginal reeds. And in the ruffled surface it was quite difficult to even see the float. Quiver-tipping wasn’t much better, the rod blowing about like a piece of straw in the freezing gale. Every now and then I thought I detected the rattle of the start of a bite, but then the wind would catch the rod and slam it half-way round, then bounce it back and forth so violently it was impossible to tell if a fish was responsible. Four or five times the rod was blown right off the rest. I moved around a bit, varied the tactics, even tied on a size 20 and fished single maggot, but I didn’t get a thing to strike at all day long, and by 4pm. I’d had enough. It was just a bad day to fish I suppose, the whole river was just dead. Things hadn’t really gone badly wrong as they do on some days, though I did get the “double whammy” walking to the last swim I fished. You know the one – your landing net gets caught in the bushes behind you, you turn round to free it and your rod top tangles in the top of the hawthorn bush in front of you. And there you are , loaded up with tackle and stuck at both ends. It’s not just me is it? Strangely, especially in those conditions, I met three other anglers on the bank that day – usually I don’t see anybody. None of them had had so much as a bite, all looked frozen, and one of them told me he had fished the river every day for the past week and hadn’t had a single fish.

The new millennium hasn’t started off too well for me from a fishing point of view. I’m suffering the usual frustrations of a roach fisher who has to work a five-day week, not being able to go when the fish are likely to be feeding, and having to make the best of it in poor conditions on the days I can go. That said, so far this month, good roach fishing days have been few and far between. I’m hoping for better things next month . It’s a bit tricky with the Oxford river – it needs colour, and it needs to drop another six inches. The two don’t go hand in hand – rain might bring the colour, but will push the level up again. M’s river only fishes well in a flood, and if you get one you need to be able to drop everything and go fishing. At this moment the high-pressure system looks set to continue – looks like I might have to get the pike rods dusted down. Or maybe I’ll visit the Hampshire Avon and see if that 8lb chub still fancies sardines….