I helped out at the netting of a 2-acre lake, yesterday, and saw some interesting stuff.

The most impressive catch was a 4lb. perch, the first I've ever seen at this weight. My son was lucky enough to catch a 3lb.6oz perch a few years back - after following our own Steve Burke's sagely writings to the letter, as it happens - but this 4 pounder was a different animal entirely.

Where my son's perch was light in colour, long and fairly lean, this one was deep-bodied, dark, and even had a bit of a belly on it. It was a magnificent specimen and certainly one of the most handsome fish I've ever seen.

The next trawl of the net turned up a tench of just over 4lbs. Not remarkable in itself but made so by the severe cormorant damage to the rear of its body. The scars were fresh - a cormorant was on the lake as we arrived - and confirmed as cormorant damage by the E.A. guys present. It was obvious, actually. The scars were like thin, extended 'V' shapes from the dorsal toward the tail, and very deep.

This lake is 10 feet deep in places and obviously the tench would be on the bottom. The cormorant had definitely had a serious go for that fish, though. More ominous by far, was the fact that no small tench and very few other fish were netted from open water.

My final surprise came when we dropped the net around what can only be described as a yard diameter 'ball' of beautiful roach. We'd spotted this tightly-clustered mass of fish under the ice two weeks ago, and in exactly the same location deep among the mangrove-like outcrops of sallow and birch just a couple of feet from the bank.

Is this normal roach behaviour, or some sort of protective tactic? Surely the roach in an English pond don't act like ocean-going sardines when threatened, do they? Only two of what amounted to over 100lbs. of roach were showing cormorant damage, the rest - fish up to 2 lbs. - were simply perfect. No other type of fish were found in the 'roach-ball', either.

As I said, it was a most interesting morning's work from which I learned a little bit more about this fascinating hobby I've become tangled up with.

All the best.

Terry

Wordbender, were the roach gathered for spawning do you think, or for protection from the cormorants?

I hope the EA boys took due note of the damage to the tench and will be ading it to the files on cormorant damage?

Den

Fascinating story. Were the roach swimming round in the ball or just lying static?

Jim.

For most of us the use of a rod is the prefered method.

Den / Jim

The roach were gathered in a tight ball, tumbling in and out, always on the move, EXACTLY like the sardines did on 'The Blue Planet'. This was first witnessed at least two months ago, which seems early for spawning but Bruno's the man to shed more light on this one.

The E.A. guys did make notes about the cormorant damage and we're applying for the required permit. We'll see.

Peter - shaddup.

Terry

I've written about this before, and in fact used to show a picture in the days that I did slide shows. However, it's great to find that someone has actually seen it, as I haven't - it first came to my attention after starting to use LCD fishfinders, and the slide is simply a picture of a fishfinder screen.

Since then friends and I often look for these balls of fish as they're balling up for protection. Usually this means that feeding predators are almost certain to be nearby. We find this far more effective than looking for the predators themselves.

However, to see the baitfish you really need to switch the fish symbols off on your fishfinder. The result is that you see the raw echoes and lots more detail. In particular, if the ball of fish shows "Greyline", it's very concentrated and thus more likely to be under attack. Loose shoals of fish are less likely to be, or at any rate haven't spotted a threat.

I have seen rudd go through this behaviour when a predator flies over head. As the Tern flew over the Rudd "swarmed" and once the bird had gone over they dispersed.