With the weather looking really good last night, I decided at short notice to have a work night visit to the historic CWA Roach Pit. When I arrived I had a quick walk round and found a few fish milling about in the Swimming Pool snags, so I set up in the nearest spot. The swim I chose is awesome as it allows you to fish 1 rod next to the snags and also to fish out into open water in the channel.
Having the use of a boat at the venue made it nice and easy to get things sorted. After I popped up the marker on the bar in the channel I nipped out and spread a large bucket of hemp, maples and tares in an area just big enough for 2 rods. The margin rod was dropped on the spot by the snags and I was all sorted just as the heavens opened. Absolutely perfect timing for once!
Rigs were all nice and simple (but effective) and comprised four inch Ultra Skin hooklinks with size 6 Wide Gapes Talon Tips, with a 4oz lead on a Covert Lead Clip. There is a no leader rule on the Roach so I used Mirage Flouro main line, pinned down with blobs of putty to keep the end tackle hidden form the prying eyes of any carp that came along and browsed over the spots.
The indicator activity started after about an hour, with liners every few minutes on the rods on the bar. A short time later I was to nail the first of the five Tench of the night. I was bucket questioning the big bucket of particle on a work night as the liners I was getting were non-stop all night and clearly the Tench were out there having an absolute field day.
Finally, at 3 in the morning I had a belting take; this was clearly not a Tench and was one angry carp that was trying it’s best to make it up the channel. At one stage it made it around the trees in the margin, but by keeping the pressure on and sinking the rod tip deep down in the margin I managed to coax it back in front of me. Happy days, as another of the Roach Pit originals named the Friendly Mirror rolled into the net at 26lb!
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