Which bait for river roach?

[tiddlertamer]

I know we’re still a month and a bit away from the river season but I’m eagerly planning my fishing trips for the start of the next season.

 

I love long trotting on both fixed spool and centrepin.

 

Invariably I use double maggot on a size 18 hook.

 

I’ve only been fishing a season and a half and large chub and barbel have fallen to these tactics.

 

My big bugbear however is that I’ve never snaffled a roach over half a pound despite regular visits to a range of great rivers across southern England.

 

I’ve tried bread flake but never for sustained periods and I’ve had virtually no joy with it as a bait.

And yet the fishing text books maintain it is the roach bait par excellence.

 

Should I use bread more this season? Or does maggot reign supreme?

 

Which bait is best?

 

Or is there another bait which always comes up trumps for you – hemp, corn, lob worm…

 

Anybody fancy giving me a few pointers.

 

Maybe this time next year I’ll have caught a roach over a pound.

My dream of course is a two pounder…

Edited May 10, 2009 by tiddlertamer

[Alan Roe]

Try tares over hemp but dont overdo it with the feeding it's a top tactic in the summer

[tiddlertamer]

Try tares over hemp but dont overdo it with the feeding it's a top tactic in the summer

 

 

I've used them as loose feed before but struggle with them as hook bait. Quite what is the nack to getting them to stay on the hook?

[gozzer]

Try tares over hemp but dont overdo it with the feeding it's a top tactic in the summer

 

Along with Alan's suggestion I would add casters with hemp feed, sweetcorn, bread (in all it's forms), stewed wheat, and lob tails.

 

Most important though is, find the roach first.

 

As for a 2lber, there are many of us that have been at it a long time, and never broken that barrier.

 

John.

[terry t shirt]

I mainly fish for river roach in the autumn but my preffered method is stcick float.

Feeding hemp and fishing either tares or casters on the hook. On its day it can be a killer method.

My pb Roach was caught this way at 2lb 2oz. Another bait i've had larger roach on is red sweetcorn but my success rate with this isnt as consistent as with hemp and caster etc

[gozzer]

I've used them as loose feed before but struggle with them as hook bait. Quite what is the nack to getting them to stay on the hook?

 

I just lightly hook the tares, no problem TT.

With hemp I push the bend of the hook into the crack and it grips. Depending on how many I want to put on, and the size of the grains, I use anything from a size 22 to a 16.

 

John.

[GlennB]

Glad gozzer mentioned wheat. This is a cracking bait for roach and the bigger fish do eventually move in. The obvious disadvantage of maggots is that every minnow in the river is also attacking them with a vengeance

[Anderoo]

As has been said, finding them is the problem.

 

If we assume you know or suspect they're there, my bait choice would be dependant on conditions. If it's high and coloured, worms (especially lob). If it's clear and daylight, something small like caster, maggots or hemp. At dusk, a decent pinch of flake.

 

I haven't done that much river roach fishing, but all by better fish (not including my two biggest, which were unintentional) have been taken in autumn, at dusk, on flake, quivertipped.

[tiddlertamer]

Thanks for all the advice.

 

It looks like bread will make more of an appearance in my bait bag on the river bank next season along with other baits such as hemp, tares and wheat.

 

One final question - do you prefer the cheapest medium sliced white bread or does flake from a fresh baked french baguette do the business too. (the latter could end up doubling up as lunch for me too...)

[Peter M]

i have caught two river roach over a pound in my life, the first was on a lobworm when going for chub on a very small river called the river wid in Essex in 1997 and weighed one pound four ounces. the second time was on maggot but it was the location that was odd as it was a really shallow inside part of a weir pool which was so out of the main flow that it was virtually still also very close in. The river was the river stort in 2004 the fish weighed one pound six ounces. such is my limited experience with catching big river roach that i don't know if this is useful but what i think i learned is that if they are on the river they might be in odd out of the way parts of it.