Andy Spreadbury's Fishing Blog

Once again there is a mighty wind a-blowin’. Although it is from the south-west it’s still chilly and although the thermometer says 14° it feels more like 8! My plan is to fish with the wind behind me again; this gives assistance in casting the long range bait as well as being more comfortable to fish. Unfortunately, when I get to the lake there is someone in the swim and I have to look elsewhere and I choose a spot with a left to right blow. Casting is more difficult but I can still get a reasonable distance. Because of the ‘bow’ in the line though, I cannot fish tight to the feeder until the line sinks well down. Could be missing bites. Oh well. It is a quiet start. A good half hour goes by before I get the first fish. A small Roach of four ounces or so. Gradually, introduction of bait on the ‘short’ line yields more action and a series of Roach and Rudd come to the net. Things start to pick up when I get the best Roach of the day - 1lbs. 12ozs. For the third session in a row I...

I get some news during the week. My good friend Ray Harris has had a Roach. Not just a Roach - but a ROACH! This magnificent creature (and I’m talking about the fish, not Ray!) turned the scales at over three pounds! Three Oh Four to be exact. For me (and I suspect for most anglers) this is not only the fish of a lifetime but a monster of unimaginable proportions. I have never seen a creature of this size and I am moved to get the rods out and get down the lake to try and catch one of this size for myself. With a ‘Pass Out’ from Mrs. S. I’m off! Once again the weather is rough; there is a cold easterly blowing and I elect to fish it with the wind behind me. I have no stomach to fish straight into it and prefer the comfortable peg to the skin-tingling, freeze-your-face-off one any day. This is a platform swim and I try out the Stage Stands for the first time. Perfect on paper, but do not account for the hardness of the railway sleepers the screw must penetrate nor the unevenness of t...

So we enter the next Phase of the Fishing Year. With the rivers closed, it is time to put Phase Two into action which this year is trying to catch a big Roach or Rudd from The Bird Lake at Faversham. There are plenty of big ones in there; it’s all about catching them. I have a plan however! My chosen rig is a 40g Drennan block-end feeder fished helicopter style with a short 3 inch length of ‘twizzled’ fluorocarbon to a size fourteen hook. Bait is a couple of white maggots. On reflection. I think I could have gone down to at least a sixteen and possibly an eighteen but the fish in here are not much fished for and I anticipate they are not ‘rig-shy’ at all. It’s a blustery day at the lake. Rain is forecast for later so it might be short session! I hurry round to favoured swim where my good friends Richard and Ray have done well in the past and I set up three rods: one to fish at ten yards, one to fish at thirty yards, and the third rod, as far as I can cast at about seventy yards....

The Last Day of the River Season I’m walking along the side-stream that joins the main river and it is as clear as a bell. A small shoal of Dace are swimming against the current as I pass and I reflect on how the river has changed since my last visit. The river is very unpredictable and although we have had no rain this past week I can not believe how low and clear it has become. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. Winter feels that it has gone at last. No need for multiple layers of clothing and ‘winter boots’. Green streamer weed is appearing where once there was none. I go straight downstream to my favourite spot - The Pylon, for I have a cunning plan I want to execute on this, the last opportunity to try something different for the Chub. Today I am going to start off bolt-rigging with a lead-clip and a new rig, but the important aspect to this method is the very tight line I intend to keep. As soon as the fish hits and moves the lead I want the compression in the tip...

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. I blanked. Technically, I didn’t; I had a Dace on a worm which I picked up off the grass and slung out in the hope of a Chub or a big Perch. But I blanked all the same… It is a glorious morning. There is genuine warmth in the direct rays of the sun now and as I walk along beside the river it seems that Winter is fast approaching its end. That’s not to say we are basking in hot sunshine because we’re not. My thoughts are on Carp and trying to catch a big Roach from The Quarry. There is no-one on the river this morning and I make a point of fishing swims at the top of the stretch. In particular I have a go at ‘The Fork’ - where the back-stream enters the main river and there is a very prominent ‘crease’. This swim looks an absolute dead ‘cert’ for a fish; a huge eddy is created by the dynamics of the flow as it hits the water from the side stream. It is an absolute textbook chub swim. I have never caught anything here. It is the first...

I’m a man on a mission this morning. My aim is to try a rig with minimal resistance to try and combat the really tentative bites I am getting. What I’m doing is using a short link leger which slides up and down the line with only the absolute minimum of shot to enable me to hold bottom. As I walk the riverbank I see that the river is up from last time and is so coloured I can not see the bottom anywhere. I don’t know whether this will be a problem or not; we shall see. My favourite swim is a far bank slack and with the extra water on the river should be perfect for a fish or two today. When I arrive however I see that recent high winds have blown a tree down and it is lying in the river in exactly the worst possible place - right across the slack! This is a bit disastrous because I cannot cast directly into the slack water from where I normally fish and have to move down-stream and make an upstream cast into the water behind the trailing tree branches. It’ll be a hit-and-hold shoul...