Red fin chasing part 1

As the colder weather is moving in and the clocks going back its time to get back onto the rivers targeting the roach and grayling. I'm lucky enough to bailiff a stretch of the river itchen, I also grew up living opposite the river itchen when I was a youngster I was either swimming in it or fishing it! So bailiff'ing the Itchen was a honour really! I love it so much and luckily it's not fished a lot. 

My fave time of year on the river has to be January when it's really cold and frosty! But there's always an excuse to get out and try and target those finicky red fins! I've found a few different shoals of roach all as finicky as the other to catch with the smaller fish always being the easiest to catch. I call them the body guards! I've been lucky enough to get a few good hits through the years but none of the real bigguns I've found yet. 

Late summer of 2014 

One session every thing came right and will be a session to remember for some years to come! I was house sitting for my mum who was away on holidays for two weeks and being that she lived opposite the itchen meant I could pre bait every eve and keep an eye on one particular shoal. Right stubborn buggers they were being! I didn't have to much luck I had the odd roach but nothing to shout home about! On the last Sunday I was house sitting I popped out for the old classic "I'll only be an hour" I crept up to the shoal and threw in a few red maggot.. Something was different today? They all started to feed! Rather than the smaller roach feeding whilst the bigger roach held back in the reeds and watched they were all at it! I decided to wait a bit and continued to feed little and often and the roach still fed! My favourite tactic is to bulk the shot under the float so the maggot on the hook slowly drift down with the free offerings I chuck over the top as I found the roach like to snatch and flee. I threw out the free offerings and cast the float out.. I watched my hook bait slowly drift towards the hungry roach and the first body guard slipped up and was sitting in my net so he couldn't return to his mates to tell them about his ordeal! Again out went the free offerings followed by my float. I was working through the shoal and surprisingly the bigguns still weren't spooking but we're holding back in the weed. This cast I was the one and I watched the maggots drift towards one of the bigger roach and he swam out grabbed my hook bait I instantly struck and I was in! But sadly for a few seconds and it was all over shoal spooked! Such intelligent fish are roach! 

 

I continued angling for the roach In 2014 but not catching anything over the magic 2lb mark but still had plenty of lovely red fins! 

This Autumn/winter I was really up for trying my hardest in beating my personal best and catching my first 2lb+ roach! I spent a lot of time feeding and watching the different shoals through the close season spotting out the bigger fish dreaming of maybe one day catching them! But like always come opening they disappeared! My first roach session was early October on a Sunday bailiff walk. I found one shoal and targeted them for a few hours before a hungry jack pike moved in spooking the shoal but landed fiver roach with three of them being over 1lb+ not bad for a few hours angling!

I look forward to my next session and maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch a 2lb+ red fin!