10 small roach, but nothing else - what was I doing wrong?

[stooby]

Hi everyone,

 

Well as some of you know, I was out on the lakes this weekend and all I managed to bag on one day were 10 small roach, and I mean small... ya know, the kind of small you would use as bait for Pike! - put it this way, the largest was only about 8" long...

 

On Saturday I tried bottom feeding and I didnt even get a bite! On the Sunday I tried fishing 2" - 3" from the bottom and the roach were going for it, 10 in all..... but nothing else.... where can I get those biggens :-) ??? what was I doing wrong?

 

I saw some huge fish breaching the water now and again so I knew they were there, just couldnt catch the beasts!

 

I was float fishing with red maggot...

 

Any tips or thoughts?....

 

Cheers everyone,

 

Stooby...

[Vagabond]

The commonest mistake in winter fishing is to overfeed.

 

Dunno if it applies in your case, but if more than 50 maggots in total went into your swim, in this cold weather, that's overfeeding!

 

Two or three maggots at a time maximum.

[Ken L]

OK, I'll be the nasty man.

10 Roach upto 8" long in february on a natural water is a perfectly acceptable catch.

Perhaps you simply need to revise your expectations or sick to carp filled puddles.

[YosserHughes]

To be honest 8" Roach aren't that small, as far as Roach go. To answer your question, it depends what you are after. Do you mean that you want to catch bigger Roach? Were you on a lake? If so, how far out are you fishing? often you need to get further out into the lake to catch the bigger Roach. Small ones work in shoals, but the bigger ones tend to lurk in smaller groups. Try using a weighted maggot feeder at distance. Remember that a 2lb+ Roach is considered an impressive catch.

 

If you are on a river, just try trotting a stick float down, and chuck in 20 or so maggots every time you cast in!

[weirwulf]

For what it is worth I think your catch not too bad for the present conditions.

Look at the design of the roach and the face says bottom feeder but if you see fish surfacing it pays to take the hint. Lastly where winter roach are concerned often less is more and the better fish will take a well presented single caster in preference to maggots. As Vagabond says, don't be tempted to over feed.

[Anderoo]

Ten 8" roach on a biting cold February day - you aren't doing anything wrong!

[Vagabond]

Ten roach on a biting cold February day - you aren't doing anything wrong!

That's one way of looking at it.

 

OTOH Stooby suggested his fish were small - the biggest being just 8 inches. Whatever, he felt he missed out, and was seeing signs of bigger fish - which I interpreted as being bigger roach up in the water - consistent with him loose feeding maggots, and consistent also with perhaps too many maggots going in at once.

 

There is a narrow line between bringing the fish up, and overfeeding.Its a situation that often occurs whilst roach fishing in lakes - and with hindsight, fishing shallower with increased shot to hook distance (so maggot sinks slowly for a few inches) might have worked.

 

Can I ask you Stooby, what exactly do you mean by breaching ? (clear of the water?, swirls at the surface? just boils coming up from fish out of sight?) and how close to your float? I ask that, because there are other interpretations (like carp muscling in on the maggots) of what you saw.

 

Interpeting signs of good fish in the swim is a very important aspect of watercraft, and you obviously have taken a big step in that direction.

 

Edit Some gremlins got at this post and did their best to turn it into machine code - I hope this edits the excess noise out

Edited February 23, 2010 by Vagabond

[stooby]

Firstly, thank you for all your responses!

 

I was fishing on a Lake about 20 - 30 yards out. I didnt throw too many maggots in, I added maybe 20 maggots or so to some ground bait which I put in around my float - although, I was fishing in the same spot the day before so by this point there could have been quite a bit of bait in there.

 

With regards to what I saw when fish were breaching, perhaps that was a bit misleading. I saw a lot of swirls, some fins, and some large splashes and plenty of bubbles around! they were a good few yards from my float, and when I then moved my float, sure enough I would see the larger fish where I previously were! :-)

 

I was always under the impression that the larger fish fed more deeper down, but i could have tried putting the bait shallower like suggested, perhaps I could give that a go next time.

 

As for what I was fishing for, to be honest.... ANYTHING! :-) the day before when my bait was on the bottom I got no interest so I thought pergaps it was too weedy or silty and my bait was being lost so I raised it up, this is when I got the Roach, which dont get me wrong I was pleased with. Not all of them were 8", that was simply the largest. The smallest one was about 3" :-) . . . but hey, a fish is a fish right! :-)

 

Next time a combination of the maggot feeder and deeper depths and also a mix with shallower feeding might be useful... anything to land something a little bigger. As you probably know, I'm new to the fishing game and these roach were my first catches! Going from 0 catches a couple of times to 10 I was more than happy with, but now I'm hungry for the bigger ones.... perhaps I'm trying to run before I can walk eh!

 

Cheers,

 

Stooby...

[Vagabond]

. I saw a lot of swirls, some fins, and some large splashes and plenty of bubbles around!

Does read as if these were priming roach. Next time you see it, try a slow sinking maggot about two or three feet down.

[stooby]

Does read as if these were priming roach. Next time you see it, try a slow sinking maggot about two or three feet down.

 

Thanks Vagabond, sorry to sound stupid, but what are "priming" Roach?

 

Cheers,

 

Stooby...