Overnighters brave the cold to catch the roach

While so many others struggled '“ Sunday '“ it was roach, roach and MORE roach for DATS' lads on the '˜Bully' at Newport, writes Trevor Johnson, pictured.

With a full moon and frost followed by bone-chilling east winds, prospects looked far from good on the exposed river bank.

But, as happens some years, the roach had shoaled up thick and tight – and were just waiting for food...and in the clear water Paul Chapman got his bread-punch presentation just right to bag 32lb of redfins!

Bob Gale was a long way adrift with 19-10 – a catch which any other day would have been a cracker – followed by Mark Haynes who included a 3-8 chub in his 15-10...while unlucky Dave Tysoe lost a roach, estimated as at least 2lb, at the net.

Milton Keynes surged to the top – their fifth top-two placing in five rounds – in the Meadowlands teams-of-three and, with just one leg to go look all set to carry off the series.

MK’s Phil Wintle was runner-up with 84lb of carp, leading his team to a seven penalty point total, nine points clear of the next side. MK lead overall with 65 points, well clear of Snowy’s and Lowdowns – both on 92.

Chubbing has been hard on the Ouse of late...but Gilders Tackle’s Dan Todd had it sussed, midweek.

He took pal Mark Shrimpton ‘somewhere between MK and Bedford’ where his tackle-rep guest bagged a 7-2 on some old ‘bottom-of-the-bag’ boilies – and then Dan went back next day to land three between 5-5 and 6-11.

Tackling up opposite the New Inn – a piece of cut I’d never got round to fishing before – I found my sunshine blotted out by a local who insisted on telling I was wasting my time, that it was a dead stretch and ‘they’ even leave it out of matches.

Too idle to move I persisted, had two to three pounds of silvers in two hours and, last cast with a tiny cube of crust, my best canal roach for ages at 1-4.

Don’t you just love it when you manage to prove a Jonah wrong...

Willards’ Dave Duwell and Phil Thompson shared a cluster of near-doubles pike on deads from Emberton Park boating lake and adjacent river, Sunday.

MK Vets, Alders Farm: Ernie Sattler 85-4, Steve Dzialak 58-6, John Robinson 48-5.

Olney, Ouse (raised £80 for Willen Hospice): Barry Glidewell 4-4, Jim Martin 3-1, Paul Caton 2-15.

Calvert, Ouse in Buckingham: John Weatherall 2-9, Austin Maddock 2-8, Dave Lewis 1-7.

Fixtures: Sat March 12, MKAA Grand Slam, Stony Ouse, 07970 047506; Coming up, MKAA spring league teams of four, 01234 713144.

Related topics: