#7. A day to remember...

Today marks 4 years to the day since I had the best roach fishing session of my life on the river so I thought I would mark it by adding this bonus Halloween blog 👻🕷🎃which is a look back in time to a session I had on the 31st of October 2012. It was a halloween session to remember and my best days haul of big river roach I've ever caught numbers wise. Not only that it, was all caught on the Sky Sports cameras for everyone else to enjoy and arguably one of the best river roach fishing sessions ever caught on camera. This is my account of the day and at the end of this blog you will be able to watch the Sky Sports coverage of this amazing session. 😝🎣😃

All the action caught on camera for Sky Sports!

On the morning of 31/10/2012 I met Keith Arthur and the Sky Sports team at Rownhams Services on the M27 which was our usual meeting point. We enjoyed are pre filming breakfast and worked out our plans for the session. We then headed in convoy to the Hampshire Avon where I had decided to take Keith to somewhere other than where we originally planned as the weather forecast was awful and the intended place was to exposed for what we had planned. Upon arrival I wasn't very optimistic on our chances as it was windy and beginning to rain. I had sent my dad and uncle down at the crack of dawn to secure the swims and to drop in some breadcrumb and a few maggots to give us the best possible chance of success. 🤔🤔

Was once the no.1 roach swim...

I positioned Keith in the middle swim, dad was in the top swim, I had the tree swim and my uncle the bottom swim. While Keith and camera man were getting set up I decided I would have a few runs through with the float to see if anything was about. First cast I was into a dace of 12oz quickly followed by several more. One a chuck basically. The colour of he river was spot on so I knew we had a chance. The dace kept coming for me and on about my 10th trot having hooked a dace on the previous 9, I hooked into what turned out to be the first of eight 2lb + roach this session would bring Keith and myself. The tell tale thump of the roach shaking its head gave it away and in a calm manor I landed the red fin. At 2lb 4oz it was a good start. After this the roach and dace kept coming. Big 1lb+ fish and a 2.1 and 2.2 followed for me before I then hooked into a huge roach. 👌🏻🐋

2lb roach for fun..

At this point cameras where rolling and when Keith could see I was into a beauty the attention was all on me as well as the camera. This made the fight even more scary as at this point it looked like I might have a 3lb river roach on which would have been my 3rd river roach over 3lb. I soon had control of the roach and shortly after it was netted. We later weighed it and it went 2lb14oz. I kept catching and Keith moved down to join me as my swim seemed to be the one the roach were frequenting in numbers. His first few casts he had roach to 1.12 and good dace. His float then sunk and he struck into only his second ever and PB equaling 2lb 1oz roach. He went a bit crazy in the excitement of landing it which made classic television. 😅😅

Keith's special roach...

We then stopped for lunch, which ended up being some lovely chips from the shop in the village 🍟 and a well earned cup of tea. ☕️ After this I had a further three more big roach one of 2lb, another of 2lb3oz and another 2lb8oz with Keith having some more big 1lb+ roach and big dace in between. This was all in the most horrendous weather. We had rain, wind and even hale at times with the sun popping out now and then for good measure. When it got to 3.30pm filming stopped with the light fading. We did a closing piece to the camera and weighed the 2.14. In the film your see the other roach and all the 132 dace in the keepnet. We were all shattered and soaked to the bone but none of us cared a bit as we had experienced the pinnacle in angling and a red letter day to remember. !!

2lb 14oz roach, the best of the day!

I returned many times after this and never again did I catch a roach over 2lb or many over 1lb from this section. They were there briefly and as quick as they arrived, they were gone. I fish the section now and again still but due to groundworks and water flow/extraction the fish just don't get in this section anymore. The odd dace and sea trout is all it seems to produce. Thankfully I have found them in other areas of the Avon and on other rivers. It was right place, right time and I hope one day I can do it all again...

A session to remember...

Now sit back and enjoy the film on the link below and re live one of my greatest ever days fishing the iconic Hampshire Avon for fish that dreams are made from... 😃🎣🍻🐟

Click play above to watch the session