October has come around again, and this time Sandy and I were able to
attend the Avon Roach Project fund raising weekend.
For the few of you who haven’t read about this project, it
is run by Trevor Harrop and Budgie Price with the aim being to restore roach to
the middle reaches of the Hampshire Avon, a once renowned roach river but they
had become rare due to predation and poor habitat management. You can read much
more about the project on line, but we try and support them as much as we are
able as we believe it is such a fantastic cause. Without the habitat improvement
and the repopulation of roach, the river would be in terminal decline, not only
affecting anglers, but kingfishers, herons and the whole cycle of life on the
river.
Anyway, the weekend follows a consistent format. We pay for
the weekend, which includes fishing, and an evening meal at the Tyrell’s Ford
Hotel followed by an auction to raise the funds the project needs.
This year the project had been granted access to the Royalty
and a couple of other stretches of the Avon
for those attending. I had read about the Royalty many times but had never seen
it, let alone fished it so that was my venues of choice.
I turned up to be greeted by other “Roach Clubbers”. I was
the exception wanting to trot rather than fish for barbel. I met one of the
famous local characters, Fred Whitlock who suggested I fished above the railway
bridge. After a stroll up there, it became clear that most of the swims were
taken. I also met the bailiff who suggested I simply trot on the far side of
the bridge near the museum.
He then opened up the museum established by Tony Timms so
that I could have a look around. What a great room stuffed full of memorabilia
relating to the river, its fish, and river keepers down the years. This is a
labour of love and well worth a visit, but sadly, it has had to be locked of
late as some idiot has taken a couple of reels.
The photographs above show the walls around the museum and
the final one is Fred Whitlock and Tony Timms with the Museum in the
background. If you have any information
about the river please contact them as they would love to gather as much
material as possible. They are currently trying to find any information
regarding the 48lb salmon reputedly caught on the Dorset Stour – possibly in
the 1940’s – but this is proving very difficult at present and one starts to
question the authenticity so your help would be greatly appreciated.
After having indulged myself looking at all the “historical treasures”
(as against financial ones) I went back to fish with a 5BB stick float, a size
12 hook with 2 maggots on a 2lb leader. I was quickly into dace, bleak and
minnow with the odd roach – these may well have been from the Avon Roach
Project stocking, and how wonderful to see the silver and bright red fins –
fabulous.
Equally good was catching a gudgeon, I used to catch loads
as a kid but they seem much fewer around today.
I simply sat on the wall and trotted under the bridge
catching them in bursts probably due to predators drifting around. I had a nice
catch of fish and at about 4pm I was bringing in another dace, and a pike,
anticipated all day, took the fish and on 2lb line I could do nothing and once
the line touched its teeth, the line parted and it was gone. It was clearly Isaak telling me not to over
indulge and to get washed ready for the dinner. I thoroughly enjoyed every
minute and each fish. Such a dramatic change from Canada, but just as enjoyable in a
different way.
I picked Sandy
up from her day around and about, and we headed to the hotel to be greeted by Trev
and Budgie, and Ted Andrews, a good friend we were looking forward to meeting
again. Ted had brought us a priest made from a piece of wood from Megan Boyd’scottage
which he has donated to Angling Heritage. Another friend, Mark Everard got a
trophy for the biggest roach of the day at 1lb 7oz, also donated a fishing hat to
the growing Angling Heritage collection (We joke with Sandy that it is now the
National Fishing Hat Collection) but we had only a short time to circulate
before the meal started. There is never enough time to talk about fishing.
Dinner started at 7 and once the food had been eaten and
cleared, the auction started. There were so many lots it took nearly over two
hours with all the interludes. It is a great atmosphere; everybody there loves
roach and cares equally for the environment and all give generously not only in
the amount purchased but also with many donating lots for the auction too.
The evening raised several thousand pounds. The only
downside was that we could have done with another couple of hours to socialise,
but a great evening, which also reflects the respect that those attending have
for Trevor and Budgie.