An Avon roach (and a visit to the Avon Roach Project)
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:25 pm
Preparations were as of old; bread left to go hard and stale, soaked, pulped with a potato masher and left to drain for twenty-four hours in a landing net. My rod was made up with 3lb Maxima straight through and a Richard Cleaver fluted float set ready with an inch of dulled brass rod instead of bulk shot.
I didn’t have a lot of time to play with, arriving at the river at 4pm. I’d already found some steady walking pace flow (so I knew where I was headed) and the first tangerine-size ball of mash was on its way to the bottom at a rod length out before my box was off my back.
The float drew line off the reel and bobbed as I held it back, slowing the pinch of flake to the same speed as the lower section of the water in front of me. Where I knew the roach would be waiting. Fragments of bread would be stirring them as the light left the sky and their instincts would trigger a feeding frenzy.
Three times the float banged under before it was too dark to see its path, with two fabulous Avon roach and a clonking dace my prize (that’s a big float!):
And the reason I knew the roach would be waiting is down to the vision, hard work and ‘never say die’ commitment of Trevor Harrop and Budgie of the Avon Roach Project. Believe me, what they have done here is a feat beyond comprehension. Two men who sat by our iconic river, nigh empty of roach (reduced to a population below critical levels), with elbows on knees, and weren’t prepared to do nothing. Beyond that, you need to wait for the book and, if the content is anything like as charismatic and fun as the author, it will be a ‘must have’ read.
Which leads me on to the Avon Roach Project itself and the morning I spent with Trevor Harrop earlier this week showing me his operation.
Have a look here for the real detail:
http://avonroachproject.blogspot.com/?m=1
Sheer bloody-mindedness, ingenuity and hard work created a three year cycle that involves placing spawning boards designed through trial and error (‘must be eight millimetre minnow mesh’), removing the boards with attached eggs into tanks where they are protected, hatched and grown on, transferred into holding ponds and then secreted back into the river after three years.
All along the middle Avon, Trevor and Budgie’s roach, and their new offspring, are visible once again off the bridges and rolling at dusk as things should be. The talk along the valley is once again two’s and three’s and the roach men have that madness back in their eyes, me included.
Here are a few photos of Trevor at work:
And I shall leave you with the majestic Avon at dusk:
They may NOT want it, but Trevor and Budgie deserve a medal (from the Queen).
I didn’t have a lot of time to play with, arriving at the river at 4pm. I’d already found some steady walking pace flow (so I knew where I was headed) and the first tangerine-size ball of mash was on its way to the bottom at a rod length out before my box was off my back.
The float drew line off the reel and bobbed as I held it back, slowing the pinch of flake to the same speed as the lower section of the water in front of me. Where I knew the roach would be waiting. Fragments of bread would be stirring them as the light left the sky and their instincts would trigger a feeding frenzy.
Three times the float banged under before it was too dark to see its path, with two fabulous Avon roach and a clonking dace my prize (that’s a big float!):
And the reason I knew the roach would be waiting is down to the vision, hard work and ‘never say die’ commitment of Trevor Harrop and Budgie of the Avon Roach Project. Believe me, what they have done here is a feat beyond comprehension. Two men who sat by our iconic river, nigh empty of roach (reduced to a population below critical levels), with elbows on knees, and weren’t prepared to do nothing. Beyond that, you need to wait for the book and, if the content is anything like as charismatic and fun as the author, it will be a ‘must have’ read.
Which leads me on to the Avon Roach Project itself and the morning I spent with Trevor Harrop earlier this week showing me his operation.
Have a look here for the real detail:
http://avonroachproject.blogspot.com/?m=1
Sheer bloody-mindedness, ingenuity and hard work created a three year cycle that involves placing spawning boards designed through trial and error (‘must be eight millimetre minnow mesh’), removing the boards with attached eggs into tanks where they are protected, hatched and grown on, transferred into holding ponds and then secreted back into the river after three years.
All along the middle Avon, Trevor and Budgie’s roach, and their new offspring, are visible once again off the bridges and rolling at dusk as things should be. The talk along the valley is once again two’s and three’s and the roach men have that madness back in their eyes, me included.
Here are a few photos of Trevor at work:
And I shall leave you with the majestic Avon at dusk:
They may NOT want it, but Trevor and Budgie deserve a medal (from the Queen).