Durham big fish angler Simon Ashton hit the headlines recently for a quite brilliant catch of unexploited, monster roach he’d located in a little known Scottish Loch – winning a weekly Drennan Cup award in Angling Times.  Simon has sent us an update following another successful subsequent trip:–

“I was back up at the Loch at the weekend for a three day session with the intent of increasing my PB Roach a little.  Arriving on Thursday evening a little later than planned, we set about raking out a shed-load of thick Canadian Pond weed via a boat, the weed was now covering the area we fished less than a month ago.

By the time it was done I looked like I’d had a silt bath! Never-the-less the task was complete and my already assembled rods fished with the usual bolt rig style maggot feeders were soon cast and clipped up on the spots.  A liberal amount of hemp & corn, plus half a dozen balls of Sonubaits Supercrush Green groundbait were deposited into the swim.  I let this settle for an hour to stew before casting; I do this as I don’t want to spook a single fish if one turns up quickly to investigate – better to have a confident shoal before making your first cast.

During the first few hours I caught a few small roach to a pound or more but no lumps…..however all that changed at 10.10pm when a brace of 2lb 12oz Roach were caught within the hour!  When we were doing the pictures the very next morning, another slightly smaller roach of 2lb 11oz came along.   This was our first proper roach so far in the daylight, so chuffed was not the word!  At 5 15pm, after topping up the swims with a pint of pineapple flavoured corn, I caught a monster 3lb 1oz fish on a whole lobworm presented on a size 6 Drennan Super Specialist hook! Crude (you might think) but big baits like whole lobs need a decent sized hook.

That night, whilst still on a high, more huge Roach came my way, and in spectacular fashion too.  After netting a string of upper twos the really big girls finally came out to play and by big I mean over 3lb!  I actually had two on at the same time, and then another 30 minutes later!  I couldn’t get a minute to have a sit down at one point.  My Super Specialist Duo 1¼lb rods were given a right workout casting and playing big roach, then retrieving them back through the weed! I actually reeled in at 4am (while still catching) due to a severe lack of sleep.

The following morning my tally of specimen roach was 18 over 2lb (most of which were over 2-9) and four of those went 3lb, 3lb 1oz, 3lb 3oz, 3lb 7oz!  I will be returning to the venue at the end of the month in pursuit of a 4lb Roach!”

Simon Ashton, April 2012