quarters of a pound

Now, I had two or three days holiday which I could take, and this would give me a few extra days fishing before the curtain came down, though I would be ski-ing at Glenshee for the penultimate weekend of the season and not fishing. In fact, in the last three weeks I managed just five days out on the rivers. The first two were hardly noteworthy. The roach seemed to have disappeared completely from the Oxford river, and all I caught were a couple of average sized chub of just over 3 pounds , two smallish (6-8oz) dace and a tiny trout. Oh yes, and I was averaging four foul-hooked minnows per trip too! At least I caught the chub on the float, which was nice, and gave me a good chance to put a new centrepin through its paces, a Young’s Purist, which seems a very nice reel. I’ll have more to say about it in another article. Conditions weren’t good on those days, but they were far from bad – I’d caught good roach in worse weather. The middle section of the river just seemed to have died. Even the normally more prolific lower stretch had gone quiet, leading Kevin to swear there was something wrong with the river and go elsewhere. He does get these feelings, and is more susceptible to extra sensory perceptions than I, so I do take him seriously. Before I knew it, the last weekend was upon me. Four days of the season left, and I would fish on 3 of them. I spoke to my good friend Matthew, and we made some plans to fish those days together. We are always in touch, talking about fishing, but lately have been going in opposite directions on the riverbank. We made our plans. Saturday we would go to his river. It usually needs high water to fish well, but we hoped the rise in temperatures would compensate for the lack of colour. It certainly had for Matthew earlier that week when he got his first ever 2lb roach (2.3.8) followed quickly by another of 2.2. Sunday we would go to Oxford, then on Tuesday finish the season trotting for grayling. We set ourselves the silly targets of a 2lb roach on Saturday, a 1lb dace on Sunday, then a 2lb grayling on the last day. I met Matthew on the bank, arriving around 7 a.m. He had been fishing a half hour already, and his big landing net was dangling in the water, with interesting ripples emanating from it. Inside were 2 small roach, and a cracker of 1.14. He insisted I take over the swim, and moved off upstream. Unfortunately, the swim then died, so I moved here and there, struggling for bites during the day. I found a swim where eager roach would pull the float sharply down, but I kept missing the bites. I suspected small fish, and this was confirmed when I eventually landed one of about a half pound before the bites stopped completely. I fished one or two other areas, but somewhat nervously. You see I knew the first swim would come on at dusk, and I wanted to be in it when it did. This meant sitting it out there for most of day for very little action, which in the end is what I did. I had a few panicky excursions up and down stream with the float, but nothing stirred and I returned to the main swim where I would fish the quiver-tip at dusk. Meanwhile Matthew had found a deep hole. Isn’t there always a deep hole wherever you fish? All the locals tell you about it – that magic deep hole that contains eels of anaconda like proportions, and pike that would grab a donkey should it be foolhardy enough to venture to the water’s edge to drink. Or if not that then it’s a bream hole. Always a bream hole, never a roach hole, nor a chub or barbel hole – no – it has to be a bream hole doesn’t it. Invariably I’ve found these holes either don’t exist at all, or they are a mere 2 or 3 inches deeper than the water which surrounds them. I know that can be significant, but they are hardly the unfailing haunt of leviathans of every species you could wish to fish for. But Matthew had found a deep hole, almost twice the depth of the rest of the river. And from it, under the midday sun he pulled roach of 1.13 and 2.1, absolutely cracking fish. So this one was a roach hole after all! My turn would come though. As the sun set behind me, so my swim came to life, with little tentative taps at first, then good bites. The first roach weighed around 10ozs, the second three-quarters of a pound – they were getting bigger. Then came a nice fish of 1.6. I missed a few bites after that, and then hooked a large piece of submerged bark which had fallen into the river. Landing it made quite a disturbance and quietened things down for a bit As darkness fell I heard Matthew approaching from behind, with his friend Stuart. They had packed up already – their swims had died when the last of the light went. “Getting any bites,” they asked.”Just the odd tap” I replied, as right on cue the rod nodded twice then pulled slowly and confidently round. This was obviously a better fish and bent my 14 foot quiver-tip all the way down. On the scales it went 12 drams over the 2lb mark. Matthew immediately recognised it as the fish he had caught a few days earlier, from the same swim, at 2.2. Not only that, but on Matthew’s recommendation, Stuart had fished the swim at dusk the day after and caught the same fish at 2.1, his first 2 pounder. So in the course of a week, that fish had made three anglers very happy indeed. Not only that – quite unbelievably part one of the end of season quest for our aquatic Holy Grail had been achieved. We both had a 2lb roach. We began having silly thoughts about the next two days! Day 2, up at Oxford. I intended arriving early in an attempt to emulate Matthew’s pre-sunrise feat of the previous day. I know, different river, different fish, but you never know. It was obvious though that the overnight frost wasn’t going to help matters, but what the hell, it was to be the last day on the river until next winter and it was worth a try. Did it work? Well – I’ll never know. As I attempted to join the road, which connects the M4 to the M40 at Maidenhead, I found a string of cones blocking my way. The road was closed. There had been no warning which might have enabled me to take an alternative route, only a sign at the closure telling me to go to the next junction on the M4, and then return. I was seriously peeved, I can tell you – the next junction was a bloody long way. I won’t tell you what height the speedo needle on the Impreza reached along that stretch, but I went quite quickly. Even so, it was a detour of almost 25 miles, which coupled with me making a slight misjudgement about the time the sun would rise, meant that long before I reached the river I could see the sun glaring in my rear view mirror. By the time I reached the first swim the sun was shining brightly on the river. I put out 2 quiver-tip rods, the first carrying a small feeder of liquidised bread, the hook baited with the usual flake. To the second rod I attached a light link leger and baited with worm. I’d been trying lobworms on and off for a while now, but oddly had not yet had a bite on them. I find that strange, because of all the baits we use, I always feel a nice juicy lobworm is the most irresistible to the fish. However, today I had no lobworms. When I opened the pot I found they had all melted. What I did have was a little tub someone had given to me as they left the river on our grayling day – a little tub labelled “dendrobenas”. I’d only heard of these particular worms in recent years, thinking they sounded more like some kind of flower than they did a worm. On asking friends about them I was told they were something akin to a cross between a rattlesnake and a conger eel. It was therefore with some trepidation that I gingerly opened the pot. Poking about in the dark earth under which the worms lurked (with a stick – I wasn’t going to put my fingers in it!) I eventually unearthed a small worm about three or four inches in length, which looked suspiciously like a brandling. I still don’t know if these were “dendrobenas”, or whether someone had merely put brandlings into a dendrobena pot. Whatever, they didn’t work, and neither did the bread. By the time Matthew joined me around 10 a.m., suffering from a mild overdose of port from the previous evening, all I’d had were minnow taps, and had foul-hooked two already. We spent the remainder of the morning trying the swims, which had produced roach for me during the winter, but they weren’t at home. Again, the minnows were ravenous, and I foul-hooked 2 more. A feature of this winter’s fishing (apart from those damned downstream winds!) has been that the minnows seem to have fed whatever the conditions; flood, frost, ice or snow the minnows have still fed ravenously, knocking off flake baits in a short time and tempting the unwary to stay too long in a swim with their constant rattling of the quiver-tip. Around 1pm I gave up on the roach and decided to go for the one pound dace. I’d pick a likely swim and feed and fish it until something happened. Matthew elected to drop down to the swims where Kevin normally fishes, but which have been so quiet of late. I moved into my swim around 2pm, while Matthew carried on downstream. For almost an hour I fed that swim with maggots, and trotted down a single bait on a hook and line I could hardly see. I had two more minnows, fairly hooked this time, so they counted! Then, almost on the hour, I hooked a proper fish – a dace. It was a good one, but didn’t look a pound. I weighed it anyway, in case it had heavy bones. It went 11ozs. As I slipped it back, my phone rang. It was Matthew.”I’ve found those roach,” he said”What have you had then?””One of 1.10, and a smaller one, about 12 ounces; they’re feeding like mad – I’m getting loads of bites. There’s plenty of room for both of us – you should get down here”Having fed my swim for an hour and just caught my first proper fish I was a bit reluctant to move. The one pound dace could be awaiting the next maggot.”Ring me back in half an hour if you’re still getting bites” I said, and carried on feeding and fishing. No more bites though, and half an hour later the phone rang again.”I’ve had 3 more – all over a pound – get down here…” So I did. But as I guessed would happen, the roach went off, or went elsewhere. Matthew had a couple of small dace, and I had a chub, but of the roach there was no sign. I eventually moved back to the middle stretch where I sat it out biteless until around 7p.m. when I went home. As I have already said, the last day was to have been a grayling day, but I don’t take grayling fishing too seriously, and like it to be a social occasion, which it should have been. But the dozen or so people who were due to go on the trip that day all dropped out, including at the last minute, Matthew. It took me ages to decide where to go – I contemplated going for the grayling, or going up to Matthew’s river. I decided against the latter as I thought the colour would have dropped out almost completely, and with the colour departing so to would the chance of a big fish. In the end I went to Oxford, and this time went straight to the lower stretch where Matthew had caught his fish. Things started off rather well – in the first half-hour I caught a chub around 3.8, then a lovely roach of 1.11. But as suddenly as the bites came, they stopped. The fish had gone already. I tried a while longer then moved upstream and fished several swims, picking up two medium sized chub on the quiver-tip, and missing a very roachy looking bite. At mid-afternoon I returned to my original swim. I cast out two rods, one with a small feeder, and flake bait, the other, again with a small feeder, but this one filled, and the hook baited with, maggots. Within minutes the flake-baited rod started tapping, then pulled round. I hooked a good fish, which swam upstream. I wasn’t sure what I’d hooked – it felt quite big, but didn’t feel like a chub. Could this be one of the few really big roach? But to my dismay (and not little surprise) it turned out to be a 4lb bream, the first I’d heard of from the river. As I netted it the tip on the other rod tapped persistently. I dropped the net and struck into a small fish, a dace of around 4 ounces. I had them both in the net at once – little & large! The bites on bread then stopped completely, and I paid more attention to regularly casting the maggot feeder. This paid off to some extent, as I caught dace of 6, 8 and 10 ounces, followed by a lovely perch of 1.2 before once again everything died. I decided to go back upstream in a last desperate search for a big roach. The time was 4 p.m. I re-fished all my favourite swims, but all I got were minnow taps. By 6 p.m. I had 2 more swims left to fish. In the first I was surprised by an enormous bite – the rod slammed round then sprang back before I could move. I wound in to find the hook gone. I gave him fifteen minutes to have another go, but he didn’t come back, so I moved. This time into a swim I’d not really fished before, but one which the bailiff often pointed too and whispered “Big roach! – After dark – big roach!” I’d sit this one out through dusk and into dark and see what happened. Nothing much did. Around 7.30 p.m. I had another huge bite and missed it. Just as I was ruminating on the thought that I’d missed my last two bites of the season, the rod went round again. The fish didn’t feel a bit like a roach, but that didn’t stop me hoping. In fact it was a chub, around 2.8. I decided to call it a day before I missed another bite – I wanted to end on a note of success no matter how relatively small. So I packed everything away, leaving the rod until last, first resting on the rod-rest, then across the reeds as I left it out until the last possible minute. Nothing happened so I eventually wound in for the last time this season, this time breaking off the end tackle and throwing it in the now empty bait bucket. I’ll sort it out when I get home I thought. I bet it’s still there when I next assemble my roach tackle. It had been an interesting day, if not a productive one so far as roach were concerned. The 1.11 brought early hope, and I confess I kept it in the landing net for a while, hoping for a brace shot. I’d caught 10 fish, a feat in itself down here – four dace, three chub, a 4lb bream and a 1.2 perch, as well as the 1.11 roach.

It’s been a funny old winter, but then, this is a funny old river. On days you would think you’d struggle, you get maybe a couple of really good roach. Then, when conditions improve and you expect to be in with a chance of a good bag, you struggle all day for a bite. The river is full of swims where I’ve caught roach the first time I fished them, then never caught another. Highlights were the day I caught 5 glorious roach for a total weight of over 9lbs; also the December day when I caught a brace of 2 pounders, which turned out to be my only 2 pounders from the river this season. I’ve edged up my personal bests for both roach and dace, and also grayling, with my first 2-pounder. I can’t see me fishing for anything much other than roach next winter, and probably I’ll be back on this most enigmatic of rivers. Maybe I’ll still be writing about it. Thank-you to those who have stayed with me through the winter. It’s not been a succession of monster fish, but perhaps the kind of fishing those of you who are restricted to just the odd few winter days on the bank can identify with – I hope you’ve enjoyed it.