Changing of the Guard

November, the trees are almost bare now and the brisk winds that are prevalent at this time of year are finishing the job off. The summer birds have gone for the winter, to be replaced by the more familiar cold weather birds such as Pied Wagtails and Robins. No more evening sessions to look forward to so long nights in front of the Telly dreaming about it until the weekend comes round and I can get out for a few hours fishing. I'ts strange how the mind works, despite all the plans I have set up for the winter all I can think about is Fly fishing in the salt next year! Bonkers really, it's so far off. I think part of the problem is that I feel unsatisfied as far as the Swffing went this year. A great start showed great promise for the season ahead, but for some reason it just crash dived halfway through. A lot of it can be blamed on the weather, the wind has hardly dropped sufficiently to fling a fly line about for months. I keep thinking perhaps I should have persisted in the Salt but just with other methods, maybe some bait fishing? Maybe I should just have a bit more backbone and bite the bullet even when conditions are against me...
I have been looking into alternative methods for when the conditions aren't suitable for casting a fly line and I think I have have come up with something that will be as light and sporting as the fly outfit but still allow me to fish in slightly windier and rougher conditions, It's called LRF and it looks very interesting and I will be researching more into the technique for next year.

Back to now, which is where my mind really needs to be and It's onto Roach fishing for the forseeable future. I had a 'practise' session with the Pole on a local water last weekend, targeting Roach with Hemp and Maggot. I managed a decent bag of fish with samples to 12 ounces or so, but the water isn't renowned for producing big Roach so not too bad. I took my two boys along on that trip too and they had a great day bagging Perch to almost two pounds on their little whips using maggot!
It'll soon be time to move onto the target water that we hope contains that elusive two pound Roach, but another session or two just getting used to the Pole techniques will preceed that.