I guess like many anglers with 50 plus years in the sport, I’m not alone in finding it increasingly difficult to improve on those much sought after personal bests when it comes to our favourite fishes. It stands to reason that the longer you’ve fished, the more chance you’ve had of landing those special fish that are unlikely to be bettered. Granted, some species like tench, carp, barbel and bream now grow considerably larger than we ever thought they would back in the 1970s, but others such as roach, dace, chub, grayling, rudd and, to some extent, perch have remained more or less in the same size ranges.

Roger Mellon with a monster dace from a Thames tributary. A fish very much still on my target list.

My PB dace of a pound and eight drams was caught back in 1979 on the Upper Kennet. I know a couple of spots where I could possibly improve it, and another pound-plus dace remains a target that I spend a few days every year trying to achieve. But gravel spawning fish have a tough time these days, thanks to declining water quality and the presence of both spawn munching signal crayfish and predation by cormorants and goosanders. All of which means that finding a truly big dace is going to be a bit of a mission to say the least.

Obsession with river roach

Big river roach have been a feature of my winter fishing for most of my life, and are still up there as my favourite angling experiences of all time. I was lucky enough to be fishing the Hampshire Avon, Dorset Stour and my local River Kennet when two-pounders were there to be caught in some numbers. Although I’ve netted three-pounders for mates I’ve never had one of my own, with my personal best still stuck on a very honest 2.14.08 fish from the Stour on a windy day back in March 1988. That was one of three two-pounders caught on the waggler in amongst a bag of three and four-pound chub, and it wasn’t the first time that I found specimen roach shoaled up with a different species of a broadly similar size. My one and only two-pound Thames roach displayed similar tendencies and was found sharing the swim below Chiswick Bridge with a shoal of skimmer bream and hybrids. One mild winter’s day on the Avon above Ibsley Bridge, when my float went under for the seventh time in less than two hours, I was surprised to find myself attached not to chub number seven but to a very pleasing 2.10 roach. And it works the other way around too. My best ever haul from the Kennet was six roach, including five two-pounders and a rogue one-pound ‘puppy’ chub.

As the haircut proves I’ve long had an obsession with chasing two-pound roach!

These days I’ve almost given up on ever landing a three-pound river roach, but I still travel in hope rather than expectation. Angling, in my view, should never be reduced to a mere numbers game, but these little personal targets do keep us going through the tough times and add a bit of spice to proceedings. I’m not sure I could ever seek to emulate the heroic efforts of those who chase the Drennan Cup every year, or anglers like the irrepressible and talented James Denison and his quest for 40 double-figure barbel from 40 different rivers. However, I do have this quirky roach target that I’d like to achieve before I make that last fateful cast. For while that three-pound river roach has proved elusive, the two-pounders have been kind to me over the years with around 60 coming from nine different rivers – the Thames, Hampshire Avon, Stour, Colne, Kennet, Evenlode, Windrush, Bristol Avon and Test. For some perverse reason I’d like to make that 12 rivers and I have my eye on a few likely prospects, including a southern chalkstream, a small Thames tributary and the mighty Trent.

I’m lucky enough to live near to some superb specimen chub fishing on the Thames between Reading and Oxford. But getting near the river this winter has been a challenge given the almost constant rainfall since October. Consequently I think my chub PB of 7.08 is likely to remain untroubled for another season – but you never know! Likewise with grayling, for although I’ve missed out on three-pounders by just a few ounces, the life cycle of this beautiful but short lived fish means that fish of this size are currently few and far between on my local streams. However, there are signs of a few bigger ones starting to come through on the Hampshire rivers, so watch this space.

Two bests bettered

Next year I hit 70 and plan to mark the occasion with some more bucket list fishing for tarpon, bonefish and GTs in far-off locations and a week long gathering of some of my favourite fishing friends around a tench and crucian lake in the more sedate surroundings of the Cotswold Water Park. This will leave only limited time to improve that PB list, so it’s a good job that 2023 has seen a couple more targets achieved.

We are blessed with some pretty decent fishing in the Reading area, with perhaps one exception – the rudd. The handful of waters around these parts that once held specimen rudd have either been lost to carp syndicates or seen the fish die out and not be replaced. I’ve made one or two half-hearted attempts to get myself a two-pounder including an enjoyable, but unsuccessful, trip to the Cam with Chris Turnbull and Giles Cawston. I’ve got friends who target them successfully in the Fenland drains, but it’s usually at a time of year when I’ve got other species in mind. However, recently one of my clubs managed to obtain some limited fishing on a small trout water where the rudd had thrived and grown to a decent size. Arriving at lunchtime in early June I found my friends Keith and Mark fishing next to the boundary rope that divides the trout from the permitted coarse fishing areas. It had been a little cold that morning and nothing much was doing, but the forecast was for a sunny afternoon and evening. So I wandered up to a spot facing a small island surrounded by a shallow shelf over which I hoped to spot a few fish moving.

This long sought bar of gold was the best of a memorable day’s rudd fishing back in June

I opted to feed hemp and casters into the channel in front of the island, and fish corn on the hook in an attempt to single out some of the better rudd from the hordes of smaller ones. I also pinged a bit of bait up onto the shelf to see if anything would move into the warming shallows. I needn’t have bothered as within half an hour my main swim was full of sparkling rudd flashing around in midwater for the bait. My lightly shotted crystal waggler would dart away within seconds if cast amongst the loose feed, but by presenting the hookbait a couple of yards to the right it would at least settle and enter the zone where the bigger fish had a chance of finding it. And for once the plan worked, with over a dozen pound plus fish coming to the net topped by an absolute bar of gold weighing 2.10 – smashing my personal best by nearly a pound. It really was a golden moment which I relived several times over on the phone with fishing friends on the drive back home.

Not a bad way to start 2023 with a fine catch of stripies including my first four-pounder

Some special perch

There’s no doubt that we are living through a pretty special period for perch fishing at the moment, and I’m fully expecting either the Thames or one of the trout reservoirs to smash the current British record of 6.03 anytime soon. My own targets are a little more modest. Whilst I’ve lost count of the number of three-pound perch that have come my way in recent years – something almost unthinkable 25 years ago – I had yet to break the four-pound barrier at the turn of this year. I don’t need to travel far from home to be in with a chance of beating this target. This summer the Thames in the Reading area produced at least two five-pounders to my knowledge, and the Kennet and K&A Canal hold plenty of big threes which are heavier still by the back end of the season. And for me the beauty of fishing for these big perch is the variety of places they inhabit, and the range of methods that work for them. Occasionally I’ll throw a few lures around but there many anglers far better at this game than me. I prefer the more traditional approaches with worms and livebaits these days, but each to his own.

The Thames Perch Hunter – every summer sees me and my friends exploring the local perch hotspots on ‘God’s Own River’ aboard Payara

A boat is pretty essential to access many of the Thames perch hotspots, especially the weir pools, and I’m fortunate enough to have small 14-footer which is perfect for the job. I probably spend more time taking mates out in the good ship Payara than I do fishing myself, but that’s all part of the fun. Over the last three years we have landed an impressive number of three-pounders using small paternostered livebaits, with the best being a lovely fish of exactly 4lbs for my old friend Keith Elliott. Living proof that those PBs can still be bettered by anglers even older than me!

And an even better way to end the year with this new personal best perch of 4.07.

My best perch remained stuck on 3.14 for some time, but this year that changed not once but twice. Back in January I had a red letter day on a Thames backwater where the perch are known to seek shelter from the floods. I was lucky enough to land four over 3lbs, with the best taking the scales past the magic 4lb mark by an ounce. Understandably I was keen to return there this winter, and with the river going into heavy flood in November the opportunity came early. Worms are the way to go in this place, and I played around with my feeder rigs so that they could be presented with minimal resistance. Once I found the fish I kept returning and chalking up the threes whilst hoping another big old stripey would turn up. And that’s exactly what happened one afternoon not long into my campaign. The light was starting to fade when my tip twitched and pulled round in a slow arc, signalling the start of a dogged fight as I worked the fish towards the bank. At the sight of the landing net it went absolutely garritty and did its best to bury me in the snags either side of the swim. Fortunately the tackle held and was able to hoist ashore a very pleasing new personal best perch of 4.07. Not a bad way to end the year, and while I don’t expect to improve on it any time soon you just never know what might turn up in the Thames these days. The best could well be yet to come!

That’s it from me for this year, so it just remains for me to wish everyone reading this a very Merry Christmas and a happy and fish-filled New Year.