Drennan’s Stewart Moss was delighted to catch this big river roach on Christmas Eve from a local Upper Thames tributary.

It weighed 2lb 3oz and was part of a catch of 17 roach, all caught trotting a stick float with a Matchpro Ultralight 14ft rod, Okuma Centrepin and 50m of 4lb Double Strength main line.

Stew hooked the big roach on a longish trot and explained how nerve-wracking it was playing it back upstream, having seen it flash soon after striking. “It’s where a very forgiving rod really helps avoid hook-pulls,” he remarked.

“The river was just fining down but still coloured, which helped as it’s unusual to get a big roach on a smaller river trotting in the middle of the day. It was very cold so really tough to trot all day – my fingers and toes were freezing but definitely worth the pain!”

End tackle comprised of a 3BB Drennan Stick Float with a size 18 Red Maggot spade-end-to-nylon baited with double red maggot. He also added 12 bonus dace to 8oz, plus a 2lb 8oz chub and a single perch.

The Matchpro Ultralight rod range is ideally suited to trotting for silverfish such as roach, dace and grayling, for full details click here.