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 aim is to fish with tight lines to the feeder so the rig is in effect acting as a bolt-rig. I’m not expecting Roach to tow the feeder across the bottom of the lake and expect only minor indications something is hanging on the end!

After a bit of a slow start, there is a drop-back on the long-range rod. The buzzer sounds and the bobbin drops and I strike and am immediately into a fish. A small Roach. Small, but brilliantly coloured; a pristine fish.

It’s back out with the feeder and a re-bait on all rods and I soon get another on the far rod. Hmmmm… nothing on the rods closer in. I have often suspected that the Roach not only move around a lot but lay at long range, particularly the bigger ones. I have had the odd ‘dabble’ in the past and noticed the sudden cessation of bites as the shoal moves away and this is what has happened now. The bites have stopped and I am left staring at the rods willing the bobbins to do something.

Meanwhile, the wind is getting up and it is getting very blustery; dark clouds gather and I can tell we are in for some rough weather. Eventually, after a long wait, I get another bite and a fine Perch comes to the net. This is just over the pound mark.

There are many Perch in the lake which no doubt feed on the shoals of Roach and Rudd. There must be some big ones although I have never heard of any being caught. I wonder if they are catchable on prawns? Anyway, that’s for another time. The wind is now really strong and after a biteless hour or so I decide to up-sticks and move round to The Blast Wall swim. The wind is blowing from the SW and I expect shelter from the large concrete structure left there many, many years ago when the site was an explosives production site.

When I get round there however I find that the wind (which is now gale-force) is creating huge eddy-currents, massive vortices and swirling back-draughts and although I am ostensibly in the shelter of the wall, it is in reality just as windy out of its ‘shelter’. I’m here any way so I might as well make the best of it. I quickly discover though that it’s a batten-down-the-hatches job as bits of fishing tackle are blown all over the place by the horrendous winds. I have to retrieve the top of my maggot box which has blown into the water and the wind has up-turned the box shedding maggots all over the grass! I’m getting pretty low on bait and painstakingly pick up the escapees from the grass. Don’t call me tight! Every maggot counts when you are running out. One pint is just not enough for three rods. (Richard in the shop did tell me but as usual I thought I knew best!)

I am down to just two rods now in an effort to manage my meagre resources and have just one rod at short (ish) range and the other far out. Once again it’s the long range rod which is first off the mark but after several re-casts I start getting fish on the short range rod, Some of these are good fish and I take Rudd to a pound. The bites are different in this swim however. Instead of the confident drop-backs I was getting over in swim 5, I am now getting little pull-ups and eventually I get a really confident pull with which I connect instantly. This feels a really good fish and pulls back! This is really my first experience of Roach actually ‘pulling my string’ and I wonder why it has taken me all these years to appreciate the fact. I get it near the net and see that it’s a really good fish but in my excitement, I bully it too much and the hook pulls… Blast! that was a good fish… For the first time I feel a sense of loss whilst Roach fishing. There must be more to this Roach fishing lark than I have ever appreciated. Like the Chub I have caught down the river it matters very much that I land these fish and this is a new experience whereas previously, Roach and Rudd have been nothing more than a brief diversion from my fishing for larger species. This is ‘proper’ specimen hunting and it matters enormously that I get one on the bank!

Out with the feeder again and after a long wait I get another confident bite. This time I am more careful and my heart leaps as I see it’s a massive Roach! I get really jittery, giving line to a fish I can clearly see is going to be a new PB! And so it proves… I land the fish and discover it is indeed a new lifetime PB and is well over the two pound mark - two pounds seven ounces! To say I am elated and excited is an understatement. This is the biggest Roach I have ever seen ‘in the flesh’ and as I look at it I wonder whether it has a bit of ‘Rudd’ in its genes. No matter. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Roach, Rudd, or a mixture of both, I’m as pleased as punch. I pack with a very self-satisfied glow about myself. I’m getting cocky now. I want to catch another one!