Winter Gravel Pit Roach – Phil Spinks

This entry was posted on 22nd January, 2021

Fishing for specimen size roach in the depths of winter has become one of my favourite styles of angling. I’ve been fortunate enough to have caught over 40 roach weighing in excess of 3lb, and hundreds of 2lb+ roach.

Having spent so much time targeting these magnificent fish, I’ve learnt a lot about their habits and the best way to improve my catch rate. So much so I thought I’d share a few of my top tips with you.

Tackle

Any roach fishing purist reading this may frown upon my choice of tackle. Whilst I would love to be able to catch giant roach trotting a stick float down my local river, this is sadly no longer an option.

“My choice of tackle would best be described as scaled down carp tackle. Quite often the roach I'm fishing for are at 50-60 yards range and I need to be able to cast my rigs accurately at that range.”

 Here is a list of my gravel pit roach set up. 

1. Advanta Discovery RVS twin tip lite rods
2. Shimano OC baitrunner 4000 size
3. Delkim bite alarms
4. Advanta MRP spod rod
5. Advanta RVS Folding specimen net 30 inch (in case a rouge carp comes along)
6. Advanta MZ unhooking mat compact.

Rigs

Without doubt the heli rig with a very short 3-inch hooklink made of 5-6lb fluorocarbon is the most effective rig for gravel pit roach.

(insert link to heli rig quickbite)

This rig coupled with a 40-50 gram Kamasan black cap feeder, 6-8lb reel line and a sized 16-14 hook is perfect.

This may sound a very heavy set up for catching roach, but casting the heavy feeders requires a mainline tough enough to take the strain without the risk of cracking off.

The reason for the short 5-6lb fluorocarbon hooklink is for its anti-tangle purposes, no one wants to spend their time at the bank untying knots and tangles in your line.

Bait

Maggots are without doubt the best bait for roach in my experience. The only problem is sometimes they are too good and you catch every roach in the swim, which is great if they’re all specimen size, but that unlikely to be the case.

If this is a problem, I will swap my hook bait over to a small 10-12mm boilie. I’ve caught big roach on several different small boilies including Sticky baits Krill, Sonubaits code red, Nash scopex squid liver, CC Moore live system and several others, these are fished on a very tight hair rig with a size 12 or 14 hook.

I will jump start my swim with a few medium spombs of bait, 4-5 spombs is normally about right. Spombing maggots, caster and hemp works well, if I swap over to boilie hook baits I will add a few whole and crushed boilies into the spod mix too.

Location

One good thing about big gravel pit roach is that they normally show themselves at either dawn or dusk. Being able to walk around your venue before fishing would be a very good idea.

“From my experience the big roach like the deeper open water swims during the depths of winter. They love feeding on gravelly areas but finding the fish is more important than finding gravel.”

Wind direction can help locate the roach too. I have had great success fishing on the end of the wind. A strong south westerly coupled with a mild spell is perfect.

Bite time

This is a very important subject, roach bite times can vary throughout the winter. I’ve found that on venues with very clear water clarity the best time is usually dusk and the first hour or two of darkness.

 I can think of several occasions where I haven’t recieved a bite all day, then as the light starts to fade it’s difficult to keep two rods in the water.

 With this in mind, most of my winter roach sessions are short late afternoon sessions fishing into dark.

“Air pressure plays a big part too. Low pressure days with plenty of cloud cover and wind can sometimes produce bites all day long. If it’s high pressure and bright sunshine I normally start fishing later in the day into dark.”

One other big tip would be the colder the weather, the bigger the roach. Really cold weather seems to put the small roach off feeding. The fishing is much slower, but the rewards are much higher.

Accuracy

Without doubt being accurate will catch you more fish, use everything in your arsenal to help with this; use marker sticks, use line clips, use every tool or tip to ensure accuracy, it could make all the difference on a slower day.

Regularly recasting the feeders every 20-30 minutes to keep topping the swim up is a great way of building the swim.

Topping the swim up with the spomb every couple of hours can hold the roach in your swim too. But remember you can always top the swim up with a bit more bait, but you can’t take it back out, so little and often feeding is best.

If you don’t hit the line clip on the cast or the feeder lasts way off the spot recast it straight away, fish as neat and tidy as you can. The more you practice the better your accuracy will become.

I hope this helps if you are thinking of targeting some big roach during the colder months. Once the weather warms up my approach to gravel pit roach changes slightly, but I'll save that for another time.

Good luck and tight lines,

Phil