Paul Scowen really hit the jackpot on a recent session on his syndicate session with this cracking bag of roach! Paul told us..

Over the years I’ve learnt that the big roach in my syndicate lake tend to feed best in a particular swim from around 12pm-6pm, and although I was running late, I managed to hop into it at 2pm. My tactics were simple and involved casting maggot and groundbait helicopter rigs to a clear, deep spot at around 55 yards. I fed nothing to the area as the water has a very low stock, so I just relied on the dark groundbait and the 15-20 maggots in the feeders to draw the roach to my hookbaits, which were double red maggot. I cast my first rod to the spot and before I could even get my second rod set-up, the first rod was away and a pristine 2lb 5oz roach was in the net.

I re-cast the first rod to the same spot and would you believe it, that rod went off almost instantly, resulting in a very big roach of 3lb 2oz. I had an inkling it was going to be a good session at this point. I finally managed to get the second rod into the water and within the next 40 minutes or so I’d added two further big roach of 2lb 11oz and 3lb into my net. I was already blown away by how these big fish kept coming but the best came at around 6pm. My bobbin signalled another take again and this time the baitrunner released some line, which big perch tend to do.

During the fight I could feel the lunges and headshakes so I still wasn’t sure what it was, as big perch and roach fight similarly. I got my answer though when I finally saw a flash of silver near the net and knew it was another monster. On the scales she went 3lb 9oz and rounded off what’s probably been my greatest ever roach session. I had five fish for 14lb 11oz and every time the bobbin went, I expected it to be close to 3lb. It was incredible fishing.