My local trout river is the Touvre. The river is a true chalk stream, that begins its life from out of a huge (almost bottomless) hole in the ground, the size of a football pitch.
Flowing some 11 kilometre's through villages, and a small town, it ends its short life joining the River Charente. The river is not stocked, and holds a small, but healthy head of wild brown trout, that can grow to a large size.
But its not the Trout I'm going to tell you about today, the river has another resident, in even smaller numbers.
Roach, not the little fish I use to catch as a boy, with an old cane rod and worms, that would weight 6oz maximum, but true giants.
These giants take advantage of the vast head of Gammarus, that this rich chalk stream produces. They are difficult to find, harder to approach, and almost impossible to tempt!
But this summer I did catch one, it took a medium weighted shrimp pattern.
I spotted the fish from a bridge over the river. At a distance it looked like a small carp, at the back of a small shoal of these wonderful fish. I took a chance and cast from the bridge, some 20 yards. I saw the nymph land, and watched the big fish follow the nymph to the bottom.
I struck, and found myself attached to this gentle giant of 1.4 kilo. My biggest Roach, and the biggest I have ever seen out of the water!
The photo does not do it justice, it was almost as fat, as it was long! A true Gentle Giant.
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