Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

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Rotrax
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Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

Post by Rotrax »

For my 13th Birthday I got a pair of green waders. I made a keepnet from two bicycle rims, a red onion sack and some string and got a real telling off from mum for stinking out the kitchen boiling up hempseed.
I had watched a Polish guy using a very, very long rod, light float tackle and a grain of hemp on the hook catching good Roach on Clapham Common small pond, the one alongside the South Circular road. He would place his float almost touching the tree branches on the island that were hanging onto the surface. He caught the biggest Roach I had ever seen.
I wished to emulate him, but not having his very long rod - about 16 feet, four sections - I decided to wade and fish under my rod tip with a tiny Porcupine quill and a size 16 gilt spade end with a 3/16th piece of black outer, white inner electric cable insulation on the hook.
I got to the swim early, empty, no other angler nearby. Threw in some loose hemp, tackled up, carefully waded out and immediatly got lightening fast bites.
My onion sack was tied to my belt, I had an ex army canvas container hanging around my neck for the hempseed loose feed and a disgorger behind my ear. A spare end rig was in a pocket should I lose my tackle in the branches.
By lunchtime I had caught over eighty good Roach - without ever needing to re-bait the hook.
The only time the action stopped, and then only for thirty seconds or so was when the Northern Line Tube Trains passed underneath. You never felt them on the bank, but their vibrations were easily detectable while standing in the water. Once the train was gone, bites returned.
Within a few minutes of others seeing me catching I was soon surounded by the floats of the other kids fishing the pond. I was even hooked in the left wader!
I was using a Sealey Floatcaster De Luxe and Alcocks match centrepin with Platil 1.9lb BS line.
An interested observer reported it to the local newspaper where it merited a couple of paragraphs. A legend in my own lunchtime................

Twenty five years later I was working in Northern Ireland and taking in two Road Race meetings during the month I was there. One weekend was free so I booked a Hotel in Enniskillen. I always travelled with the means to catch a fish and I had my gear with me - the same rod and reel as my Clapham Common catch.
The local tackle shop provided a quart of mixed maggots and a bag of groundbait plus a local fishing guidebook. I decided to visit the Arney River, described as a slow moving productive water.
I found a likely looking swim, put in a bit of groundbait and loose maggots while tackling up. Plumbing showed an even depth of five foot ish over mud.
Whithin moments of the first trot through an unmissable dip of the float bought in a beautiful half pounder, the average size of my catch that day.
I had to empty the net downstream twice, I had over 200 prime Roach in the nine hours I spent fishing there.
Never had a day like it since..................................

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Robbi
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Re: Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

Post by Robbi »

Wonderful 👍

Where did you stay in Enniskillen? I bet the tackle shop was Home, field and Stream, I've spent many hours and ££££ in there.
"In the back roads by the rivers of my memory"

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Rotrax
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Re: Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

Post by Rotrax »

I cant remember now. It would have been a decent hotel as the firm was paying.

I was running four training courses for Motorcycle Mechanics at Nutts Corner. I worked four days and had the other three off.

I managed a bit of fishing plus riding in the Tandragee 100 and the Mid Antrim road races.

God knows what would have happened had I crashed in the racing between the training courses!

I also caught a small - 12 inch - trout on a fly I tied from a feather out of a pillow from the hotel. I dapped it with my Floatcaster from a bridge by Castle Archdale.

Great days.

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Catfish.017
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Re: Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

Post by Catfish.017 »

Great recollections there! Obviously cherished memories. When I worked at Ford Motor Co in Swansea we had a tool room foreman Bernard Bailey, once a keen angler back in his native Kent. I had talked to him about hemp fishing on my local club lake. A few days later he presented me with a short length of that cable insulation you mention. It was indeed a brilliant substitute for the actual grain and as you said, lasted indefinitely.

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Robbi
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Re: Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

Post by Robbi »

Killyhevlin Hotel or the Manor House Hotel which is closer to Castle Archdale ( we have camped there for many years, it's an old WW2 flying boat base)
"In the back roads by the rivers of my memory"

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Rotrax
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Re: Two good Roach catches - 25 years apart.

Post by Rotrax »

Manor House rings a faint bell........................

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